By Ourselves: Conspiracy Theory
by Aki Vos
Summary: Continuation to By Ourselves. School gets out for the summer and Maka and Soul get a summer assignment in Soul's hometown, and something's happening in Death City. Is it real or is Stein too paranoid? Rating may change... : FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

Death Scythe yawned and woke up scratching his head and opened his eyes to look up at the over decorated ceiling of his large house. He sighed through his nose and sat up to scratch his back where the scar had settled and shuffled his feet against the floor picking his slippers up with his feet and he scuffed his way to the door and walked out into the hall straighten his black pajamas out. Walking through the living room he turned his head and kept walking. "Morning Stein."

"Hi Sempai." The miester said flipping through the morning paper.

Death Scythe stopped and his face grimaced. "Stein?" He was met by a 'hm?' "What are you doing in my house?"

"Marie's coming back today, I really didn't feel like being at home when she arrived." Stein said. Death Scythe muttered to himself, 'that's what I have to do today,' and he heard the paper being flipped. "I made the coffee."

"I mean how'd you get in here, I had every door and window locked." Death Scythe moved to a cupboard and pulled out a cup.

"You leave a key for Kami under the front left window sill. I borrowed it…" Death Scythe rolled his eyes and poured himself a cup of coffee to walk out and sit down next to Stein. "You don't look angry about it Sempai."

"Too tired…" He grumbled and began guzzling the cup down. "Hey, you got the time?"

"Um… 9:40." Stein said looking off his watch and quickly returning to the newspaper. Death Scythe stopped and set down the cup as the door bell rang. He quickly ran down back to his room. "I take it I'll get it."

Stein got up and walked over to the front door to see Maka and Soul. "Hey Stein-Sensei, why are you at Papa's house?" Maka asked walking in.

"I'm avoiding people as usual. What are you two up to?" Stein said closing the door behind Soul.

"We're going to surprise my parents by randomly showing up, Death Scythe wanted to take us too the airport since he has to pick up Maire." Soul said and suddenly they all saw Death Scythe hopping on one foot down the hall trying to get the other sock on. Soul laughed quickly. "Nice. Told you he'd be unprepared."

"I think he's doing quite well only waking up barely two minutes ago." Stein said and went back into the dining room.

Death Scythe walked in and slipped into his shoes. "I'm ready." Smiling he gave them a giant peace with his hands. "Alright where are you're bags." Maka held up a small blue hand bag. "That's it?"

"As soon as we get their, someone will end up going shopping and buying clothes for everyone, it always happens, so we don't need to worry about them." Soul muttered.

"Got your boarding passes? IDs? Passports?" They both nodded. "You two don't leave me any room to be a father, how am I supposed to yell at you?" Death Scythe poked Maka's forehead causing her to giggle. "Let's go."

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Death Scythe looked down at his watch and grunted. Marie's flight was a half an hour late. He had been sitting there for an hour recounting himself crying and bawling at his daughter's departure and was quite proud of himself. Of course, Maka was horribly embarrassed by the crazed man cling on her leg begging his little girl never to forget him. The old guy who kept yelling that he loved his daughter had been kicked off by Soul after a fifteen minute display of affection for his only child.

"Now arriving, the 11 'o Clock flight from Melbourne, Australia at gate 15." The little buzz went off and the announcing voice went off.

"'Bout time." Death Scythe heard himself say and he turned his head towards the gate and wondered how long it would be until Marie came up and said something that would make him feel horrible. Instead, she didn't come off at all when the others did. The pilots even came off and she wasn't there. "Dammit…"

"Who are you waiting for?" She a cheery voice behind him and he turned to see Marie with a travel bag over her shoulders.

"You, why weren't you on your flight?"

"I was." She said as Death Scythe got up. "I said I was flying in from Melbourne, I didn't say I was on THE flight from Melbourne. I flew myself; a friend of mine taught me how to fly a plane. Isn't that exciting?"

"No, actually it's kind of scary." Death Scythe said standing up. "Let's get going. I want to call Maka as soon as possible to make sure she got on the flight alright."

"Can't you use your cell phone or did you break it again?" Marie asked and Death Scythe offered to take her bag and walked her out to the giant luxury car.

"I gave it to Maka, so she could keep in touch with me and Mama. Plus, if she calls Mama, I get Mama's number." Death Scythe put the bag in the trunk and closed it going around to open the passenger door for Marie.

"Thank You." She said getting in as Death Scythe closed the door behind her and went around to the driver's seat getting in he started it and put his seat belt on. "Is this your car, Death Scythe?"

"Um, no, I'm borrowing it from Shinigami. I don't have a car, don't have a license either." Death Scythe said.

Marie got a worried face, "do you know how to drive?"

"Of course, my license is just suspended for too many DUIs. Don't worry, I won't crash." Marie calmed down and began playing with the radio. "How's Australia?"

"Filled with Kangas and the occasional guy I had to beat up. Just because you're eighteen does not give you the right to grab my ass." She said angrily and still couldn't find out how to work the radio. "Did Shinigami-sama Marie-proof this?"

"Oh sorry, the radio doesn't work. Be happy we have air conditioning." Death Scythe said and rounded a corner and hit the accelerator.

"Are you supposed to be speeding that much?" Marie asked noticing how they were soon going over 140 miles per hour. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"For a death scythe, you worry too much." Death Scythe laughed and sped up more.

"So, how's everyone in town?" Marie asked trying to keep her mind off the illegality of his actions.

"I dun-know. Haven't really paid that much attention to anyone besides me, Maka and Kami, though I did have the horror of waking up to find Stein in my house." Death Scythe sighed. "You'll be staying with Stein again."

"I know, I told him to keep the room for me. I just worry that he built a lab around it." She said and bit her finger to look out the window.


	2. Chapter 2

Death Scythe stopped the car in front of Stein's, got out with Marie and got her bag from the trunk. "I'm not sure if it's locked or not, but I'm pretty good a picking locks if you need it."

"No worries, I've got a key." Marie held up a small key chain. "Well, thanks for the lift, I'll be stopping by about the guy training. Later." She said and cheerily ran up to the door and tried the knob. Death Scythe got back in the car and drove off muttering "you say it's better letting it be and you give her a key to your house… That makes so much senses."

As he drove off Marie unlocked the door and stepped in to find it different and strange. The main entry way was clean and the windows were open in the two rooms to the sides letting in the hot Nevada sun. "Weird, it looks happy." She closed the door and slipped off her heels on the mat and hung her keys on one of a bunch of hooks above the mat. She made her way down to the room and noticed a new handle.

Opening the door she was surprised to look in and see an entirely different room, and surprisingly, in a good way. Instead of the normal grey and occasional steel that matched the rest of the house, Stein had put in hard work and repainted the room a light blue, put carpeting in, and had repaired both the bed and dresser. Marie looked at the sheets on the bed. "Even silk sheets… Wonder why he'd do this for me?" She said turning to the window; she noticed quickly that there was a small bowl of petunias.

"Are you little guys thirsty?" Marie asked fondly of the plant and went to the side door and opened it to a completely remodeled bathroom. "Maybe he's trying to sell the house…" She set the small plant into the sink and gave it a little water and went to check out the rest of the house. Marie quickly found that besides the living room, everything else was still a messy old laboratory.

"Weird." She said and turned around to see Stein's bedroom door. She turned to see out the hall and saw no one in the long passage and walked over to the door and turned the knob. Marie carefully stepped in and flipped a switch to find the room was tiny and disturbing. The walls didn't show at all, covered by random clippings and notes connected by different covered strings. All over the floor were newspapers journals and the occasional empty cigarette pack. "I shouldn't have come in here."

Marie quickly turned around and saw a small photograph above the door and looked up to see it was taken way back in the school's history. "Me, Kami, Yumi, Death Scythe, Stein, Nygus and Sid when Yumi became a death scythe… I'm surprised he still has that." Marie flipped the switch and closed the door.

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"Sempai, Norman Hartwell is the only candidate running for mayor." Stein said rushing up with a page open in the newspaper. "Do you know how bad this is for us?"

"Is that the kid in your grade that declared a vendetta against us?" Death Scythe took the paper and skimmed it. "'Hartwell is running under the policy that perfection is key and that organization is what Death City needs. He proposes this by introducing neighborhood codes and regulating that all houses fall under them or pay substantial fines.' Not that bad, a little bit prick-ish."

"He's also running under the slogan 'no more crack pots.' This has to do especially with us. He used to call me crack pot constantly." Stein pointed out quickly. "It's a conspiracy. He's going to get me by implementing laws and such and try to make me follow them."

"Why don't you try to kill him again?" Death Scythe tossed the paper back at Stein and looked up.

"Not a bad idea. I did like kicking him off that cliff senior year." Stein said and sat down. Stein shook out of it. "Listen, he's going to get us, I may not have anybody, but you have Kami and Maka, he'll get them too. It's a vendetta, a blood feud."

"Kami is staying at Yumi's, she's safe, and Maka's all the way out in God knows where with Soul." Death Scythe said grabbing a leftover plate of nachos out of the fridge. He stuck them in the microwave and walked past Stein noticing something on the cover. "Wait a minute…"

Death Scythe flipped the front page and smiled. "Vivian's coming back to DC tomorrow. You remember Viv, as much as I hit on her, she followed you around."

"Oh, I saw that, but that's not important. What is, however, is that Norm…" Death Scythe slapped a hand over his mouth.

He held up the paper with a glamour shot on it. "This is Vivian Leandros, the hottest person ever to come out of Greece. Miss Death City for five years and professional supermodel at fifteen. The only girl to have double Ds before she graduated and she had the hugest crush on you in the world because you're all dark and mysterious." Death Scythe said, "Do you realize how fast you could get with her?!"

"That doesn't seem that important as this guy who's declared a vendetta on us. Now he's going to try something before the election to get our names ruined, I know he is." Stein said. "He's been planning this for years, that's got to be it. He came back to be mayor to… to do something to us."

"Stop it with the conspiracy theory. I'd rather you start going on about Area 51 or zombies, do you know why, they exist."

"So does this threat."

"Vivian Leandros… She likes to wear a bikini top and short shorts around." Death Scythe said getting distracted by the article.

"Kaaaamiiii." Stein said slowly and Death Scythe dropped the paper and started professing his love to his ex-wife.


	3. Chapter 3

**Little note: You should read By Ourselves first, or you will be confused... :) Anyway, little response to the reviews. Words sucks at spell checking and so do I, I apologize. Secondly, Soul and Stein were up there for main characters because it wouldn't let me pick six different people as the main. This is a MakaxSoul like By Ourselves (which you should have read) but it turns focus more onto Stein and his relations later on. And there is NO yoai in this, I know some poeple don't like that. :) Lovingly and a bit tired, Aki**

**Littler note: Apparently the formating was off between the separations for some reason, this has been fixed and will be monitored closely like crazy people. I'll also be going through spelling again and hit it hard and with avengance. Aki**

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Soul looked around the cabin nervously searching for something to distract him since both the movie and TV were broken. Almost everyone on the plane was cranky excluding Maka who had brought a small digital card game that was keeping her at her normal cheery level. Deciding it was too depressing to stay looking up he decided to watch his feet which were possibly more boring. Sighing he noticed a ruffle and saw Maka's bag move.

He nudged her slightly. "Maka, I think your bags alive."

"It's a bag, Hun, it's can't be alive." She said not looking up from the game. Suddenly she felt her sunglasses hit her legs. Maka handed the game off to Soul and picked up her small carry on and opened it to see a small witch hat pop out and purr softly. Maka quickly lifted the base of the hat up to see Blair's chipper face.

"Blair-chan likes plane rides." She said quietly.

"Blair-chan isn't supposed to be on the plane because we could get thrown off for smuggling you on." Maka said quietly. "How'd you get through the x-ray machine?"

"Blair-chan turned in to a granola bar. Blair-chan is a very powerful cat, remember?" She said and crawled out of the bag and settled on Soul's lap. "Anyway, Blair-chan wanted to go see Wes-kun."

"Don't you two talk everyday, like five times a day?" Soul asked her; Blair nodded and saw a steward coming. She quickly jumped into the purse and held still. Maka held a firm arm over the bag and looked a head while Soul looked out the window. The stewardess passed and Blair popped out again.

"Maka-chan, will you order the fish and feed Blair-chan a bit? Blair-chan's tummy is growling." The cat said putting on a pathetic face.

"Alright, but you've got to stay in my purse, got it? And no moving either." Maka said and scooted over in her seat to set the hand bag by her. "I can't believe you couldn't just tell us that you wanted to go."

"Blair-chan didn't decide to go until Blair-chan realized that Blair-chan would be all alone at home." Blair said and popped up in the pair of slim sunglasses. "Look, Blair-chan's a movie star!"

"Get down." Soul hissed and shoved her back in the bag as a stewardess walked by again. Soul sighed and pulled his hand away. "If you don't behave, I WILL put you in the storage bin."

"Alright! Blair-chan will be good. Blair-chan's little scythe boy is being so mean to Blair-chan and Blair-chan didn't even do anything wrong." The cat said and curled up into a ball. "All Blair-chan wanted to do was to go see Wes-kun and I get yelled at…"

"Well I'm… Did you just say 'I'?" Soul asked the little cat. Leaning over and looking into the bag.

"Yea…. Wes-kun's teach Blai… me pronouns." The cat said. "Bl… I told him this morning that Bl… I was sneaking aboard to see We… Him. It's hard Soul-kun, pronouns suck!"

The cat kept muttering and shoved her head deep in the bag. Maka looked at her and opened the bag to pet her. "You're doing a fantastic job Blair. Really well!"

"At least Maka's nice to me." The cat said and quickly stuck out her head and pulled off her hat. With glowing big eyes she looked at Soul. "Well?"

"I'm sorry Blair." Soul said and patted her head.

"Maybe we can get Vivian to run for mayor, I heard she was looking to run for Miss Universe. It'd look good on an application." Death Scythe said day dreaming at his kitchen table instead of trying to brain storm ideas for getting Normal Hartwell not into office. "And she could enforce bikini uniforms at Shibusen…"

"First off, Kami." Stein said and Death Scythe suddenly began asking for forgiveness from his ex-wife for not think of her. "And secondly, Maka would also be in a bikini… You do realize that."

Death Scythe slammed his fist on the table. "Viv must not become mayor, at all costs."

"I got a really good idea, Sempai. Someone who everyone knows, they'll trust him because of his name, and he never does anything so it won't interfere in his life."

"He sounds like the perfect candidate." Death Scythe said cheerily. "Who is he?"

"You, Sempai. That would be you." Stein said quickly and was followed by silence.

Death Scythe looked at him and crossed his arms. "I do to do stuff. I spend my time trying to get Kami back… and I go shopping. And the bar, I spend a lot of time at the bar."

"Never mind that." Stein said and leaned foreword. "Will you run against Norman?"

"Of course not, Mayor's a boring job. If you don't want him in office, why don't you run?"

"Would you honestly vote for me?" Stein said and smiled.

"Good point, everyone's scared of you." Death Scythe and heard knocking at the door followed by high heel footsteps as Marie walked in. "Hey Marie, hey do you want to run for Mayor, I drink too much and everyone's scared of Stein."

"Why don't you just get the current mayor to run again instead of trying to find a new one? Finding mayor material is hard."

Stein's chair scooted back from the table quickly, he grabbed Marie's shoulders. "Thank you, you're a genius…" Stein quickly shoved her aside and went out the door.

"What's gotten into him?" Marie asked quietly.

"Why are you dressed up like Steve Erwin?" Death Scythe quickly shot back.

"Oh, it's my Dingo catching outfit. I just love Dingos." Marie said happily. "I find them and given them immunizations and help do research to see how we can keep them strong in population." Marie said laughed. "They've rated them as venerable right now."

"Right… Shouldn't have asked. So, getting my wife back."

"On to where ever she is then. While going we're going to talk about your feelings."

Death Scythe shook his head. "Bad idea, why don't we start by training me, then we'll get to touchy emotional girly stuff."

"Calling it girly is a turn off." Marie pointed out and began to walk out the door. "Maybe we should do some observation. Come on Death Scythe."

Death Scythe moaned and followed her out reluctantly. "Can't you hypnotize me or brain wash me, or maybe just hit me when I do something stupid...? Ow, alright, I get it."

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the delay in the chapter, everything's gone completely hectic over here, where I am, so I'm changing my schedual to T, W, Th but don't be suprised if i just put everything up on one day and call it good, I'm quite lazy. As I say to my team, I am the most energentic lazy person you will ever meet. - XO Aki**

* * *

Maka's carry on bag went through the machine showing her sunglasses, her game, a brush, Death Scythe's cell phone, her and Soul's paperwork and a granola bar. Maka took her purse from the man, said 'thank you' politely and told Soul to find Wes. "Going to let Blair change back?"

"Yeah, we'll be in that women's room over there." She said and they spilt ways as Maka rushed over and stood in the empty tiled room. She opened the bag and Blair jumped out and stretched.

"Being a granola bar is hard…" Blair said and turned into a human in a nice shirt and black dress pants. "Doesn't Blair…. Don't I look nice?"

"Wait… are those my mother's clothes?" Maka said looking up at her and tossing her hands against her hips.

"Well, when B… I decided to go this morning, I stopped by Kami-san's apartment and she let me borrow clothes as long as I made sure you and Soul-kun didn't get into any trouble."

"Oh… And you said that sentence very well." Maka said smiled up at her and Blair smiled and grabbed Maka's arm. "Let's go get Wes-kun!"

"You can get Wes, I'm getting Soul." Maka quickly stated and Blair said whatever as loudly as she could and dragged Maka out to where Soul was standing next to Wes joking. Maka suddenly felt Blair let go and shout across the airport. It was weird because Soul actually watch his bother run up and hug the cat thing.

"I'd hate to be the barer of bad news," Wes said as he pulled off her, "but your ears are still showing. Mother might get a little freaked out." He said and began looking around and didn't see anything to hide them. "Do you guys have a hat with you?"

"We can stop and buy one." Soul said quickly. "It'd be a little back tracking, I guess. Or you can take us to the house and go shopping yourselves." Soul shrugged.

"Good thinking Soul. So, have you gone over the rules with them?" Wes asked as he opened the airport door and let them all walk out to a sparkling black Rolls-Royce.

As they all started filing into the car Soul sighed and closed his door and waited for everyone to get in. "House-rules, no guest are to be unattended, our mother has terrible paranoia. After you get in your rooms at night, she'll lock you in. Shoes are to be warn inside, another of my mother's paranoia things, it's so she can here you. That's it for the house rules."

Wes started the car and began to pull out into the drive way. "New house rule, absolutely no fire, ever. Mother's scared of that too now. Grandma's house burned down last week; she's staying in the guest house."

"Cool. You'll like grandma, she's crazy." Soul smiled over at Maka. "She has fake stuffed birds as pets and she feeds them. Anyway, rules to be around our parents, make your family seem all self glorified, like you'd take about your father being a death scythe and Blair… I don't know your parents but just say they died when you were little."

"Okay!" Blair said turning in the front seat and looking at the two.

"This may sound hard, but never mention any defects about anyone you know, so like you'll leave out your parents got divorced and stuff, and Blair…. I don't know, maybe that you're not what ever you do at work."

"Can do!" Blair smiled and she sat back down correctly as they came up to gates and drove up a long driveway. Maka looked out the window and saw a huge tan manor. "I thought you said it was a house…"

"I may have under exaggerated." Soul said scratching his hair nervously. Wes stopped the car and put it in park. "Here you go, avoid obstacles, mother told me to warn you Jennifer found out you were back in town."

At the mention of the name Soul growled deeply. "Thanks for the warning, maybe I can hack off her head or something." Soul opened his door and got out and Maka quickly copied him. "Have fun shopping, get me something cute Blair!"

"Bye!" Blair said happily and waved as Maka shut the door and they drove off. Soul and Maka turned to look at the huge dark wood doors. Soul sighed, "listen, I don't really want to go in there, do you want to go meet Grandma?"

"Sure." Maka said and Soul offered a hand out. Maka gasped it quickly and they began walking behind the large house to a break in a long row of bushes. They soon hit a small cobblestone path that lead through the bushes to a two story house. "Guest house?"

"Don't dwell on it." Soul said quickly and went up to the porch door and knocked. There was a pause before a blow whistle went off. "That'd be grandma." Soul said opening the door and walking in towards a rich aroma in the kitchen and there was a thin woman with badly died bright red hair and twinges of wrinkles all over her face. "Hi grandma."

She looked over and smiled. "Well if it isn't that little brat that chased my cat up the tree." She said and Soul dropped Maka's hand to hug his grandmother. "Well Soul Eater, I knew when I talked your parents into naming you that it's come out good. I wanted to them to name Wes Cello." She said looking over at Maka, "A guy named Cello playing violin, wouldn't that be crazy. Ha! I crack myself up." She snorted and began to laugh. "Aren't I just a hoot and a holler?"

"Grandma, this is my miester and girlfriend Maka." Soul said as the lady let go of Soul.

"Hi." Maka said sweetly before she was taken up by Grandma.

"Your just the cutest little girl. You're so much prettier then whatever's her name." Grandma said. Soul growled again. Grandma let go of her but kept an arm around her as they both looked at Soul. "She keeps harassing Soul, Soul finally got away from her when he became a weapon. But I heard she's back, so you might want to cut open another one of her appendages. Nasty little bitch she is." Grandma walked over letting Maka go and pulled out a batch of cookie. "Margo's on a cleaning spree, I made them extra crumbly."

Soul laughed quickly. "Margo's my mom. Mom and Grandma don't get along well."

"She's psychotic…" Grandma said and put them in a small bowl and shoved them in Maka's purse. She quickly pointed to her nose, "Look what grandma got, I met some bikers a few weeks ago."

"You got your nose pierced?" Soul asked quickly looking at a small diamond stone.

"It's inspired me, I'm writing a whole new book, just for bikers and punks! _Poetry for the Wild Heart! _I've got half of it finished so far." She said proudly. An intercom came on in the kitchen to reveal a man's soft voice. "_Mother, have you seen the boys, they should have been back by now."_

"I've got Soul and his pretty little girlfriend, no clue where the other is, him and that blasted car... Never makes time to come and see me since he got it." Grandma said pressing a button.

"_Hey Soul! I'm up in my office, why don't you come see me?"_

Grandma pushed the button and stepped back so Soul could get to it. "We'll be up dad."


	5. Chapter 5

Soul lead Maka through a service entrance where there were all sorts of cooks making foods and preparing things, several actually stopped to give Soul and Maka food or have them try something. Plenty off the cooks actually hugged Soul, and Soul knew everyone by name. A large man Soul kept calling 'Biggie' actually brought them over to a table and gave them cake and made sure they ate every bite of a double chocolate swirl that was supposed to be for dinner. Biggie said he'd just make another. On their way out Maka was actually stopped and given food to take in her bag.

Soul quickly led her out of the kitchen, "Hey Soul, why's everyone giving me food?"

"It's a habit, they always give you food. If you get around my aunt Kristi, you'll be given jewelry. If you get around my uncle Frank, you'll get a pool cue. And so on and so forth." Soul said and stopped in front of a large dark wooden door. A 'come in' sounded from the opposite side. Opening the door Soul presented Maka and himself in from of a large wooden desk where it was obvious that the man behind was Soul's father. His hair was cut, white and he had Soul's casual smile on his face.

"Don't stand there like a stiff, you're mother's gone somewhere." His dad said and climbed on to his desk and moved to sit on it with legs crossed. "Don't tell her I was sitting on my desk, she gets pissed when I do." His father noticed her and stuck out his hand. "You must be Maka, I'm Bright Evans."

"Hello." She said but was drowned out by a large yell 'BRIGHT!'

He quickly got off the desk and went around to sit in his chair mouthing 'I wasn't on the desk.' A woman in a black dress covered in jewels walked in stiffly and looked at them before running and grabbing Soul. "My little baby!"

"Hello Mother." Soul said and she pulled off and did the same to Maka. "Soul's told us all about you in his letters. Welcome to our home!" She released Maka and held out a hand. "I'm Margo. Isn't this exciting! We should have a party, Soul's never had a girlfriend before." She said excitedly looking down at Maka.

"Mom, you know Wes's girlfriend actually came with us, they're shopping right now." Soul mother began to freak out more and began talking about a huge party. "You know, I don't really like to sound so stiff but we have…." Soul looked to Maka for help.

"We have a report to do on the witches in the regions. We'll have to go through all newspapers for the region over the past five years and contact Shibusen to learn about the cover ups." Maka lied quickly smiling. "It shouldn't take that long, a few days or so, but we should get our work done first."

"Oh such nonsense, there's always time to spare one night for fun." She said and clasped her hands together. "Anyway, you can just take a whole bunch of newspapers back with you, there's a long summer still. Bright, why don't you call up all the relatives, well have a huge party!"

"Sounds fun!" Bright said and made a note of it.

"So, my dear, what do your parents do?" Margo asked leading her away from the two. She turned to Soul who was suddenly captured in a head lock by his father.

"Let your mother do the interview, it's just kind of a formality for her. Alright?" Bright said and let go of Soul. "I'm surprised she didn't say anything about your clothes."

"She probably couldn't see past her ego."

"Be nice." His father said slapping him on top of the head. "Your mother has problems and we'll have to learn to adapt to them until I can find an institution that serves caviar."

* * *

"My father is the current Death Scythe to Shinigami. He's the strongest ever created. My mother's a miester, she and my father take on the hardest cases. They are the best." Maka reported promptly. "That's why I became a miester, I'd like to be as good of one as my mother."

"Sounds like hard work. So, what's your grade point average?"

"4.21." Maka smiled. "I always have the highest grades possible, my mother was the top of her class, so then so am I."

"You look up to your mother very much, don't you?" Margo smiled and bent down next to her. "She's very proud of you I can tell. If I ever had a daughter, I wish she could be just like you."

Margo patted her on the head, "there's no report, Soul just really hates parties."

"What? Why didn't he just say so, he doesn't have to come for more then a few minutes, just say hi to the family and you can two can go stay with Grandma, she hates parties too." Margo said sweetly and took her hand. "You really are such a sweet child. Let's go back and tell them."

"Alright. So, what do you and Mr. Evans do?" Maka asked looking a her.

"Well, Bright is a world class violinist, that's where my little Wes gets all his talent from. I'm a dance instructor; I teach and conduct professional ballet. I was almost a Radio City Rocket as well, I broke my ankle at the tryouts." She said and rolled her eyes. Margo brought Maka into the room. "Maka told me about your little 'paper.' You don't have to attend the party Soul, just say hi to the relatives."

"Wait… Really?" Soul asked and looked at Maka who smiled sweetly.

"Well, why don't you go show her the rest of the house?" Bright said pointing to the door. Soul quickly walked up and took Maka's hand away from his mother and raced down the hall to tell her how awesome she was.

"So, what's your opinion, darling?" Bright asked going around his desk to sit down.

"Generally, I like her. She's very respectful, good head and she's trying to become just like her mother. Also, her shoes click very loudly against the marble." Margo added happily and Bright tried to keep from laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

Blair and Wes had fifteen full fledged, very long streets of just shops and bazaars to go through with one credit card belonging to Wes's mother and the five hundred dollars he had pulled from his bank if they bought something from a street stand. Blair was having a hay day, and Wes was encouraging her. "Do you want to go in there?"

Blair looked up at a little shop called 'Dasiy's for Young Ladies.' "You said you had to get some clothes for Maka."

"Bl… I do. Alright, let's go." She said and he opened the door to let her in to the small red and white boutique. The racks were lined with tops and bottoms of every type and Blair went crazy rushing over and searching for clothes. She pulled out a light blue dress and held it up to him. "Do you think Maka-chan would like this?"

Wes smiled. "You do realize you're asking a guy, right? I just brought the money." He laughed some and Blair rolled her eyes and pulled his arm out and draped the dress carefully across and kept going through the racks pulling of several other pieces of clothing. "Are you even checking the sizes?"

"Blair-chan wears Maka-chan's clothes often enough…"

"You called yourself Blair again." Wes pointed out quickly and Blair stomped her foot. Wes walked over and draped a hand against her cheek, "it's a habit, it'll take a while to break. Don't get upset; just realize you did it, alright?"

Blair smiled and held his hand against her face and nuzzled it. "I'll try harder." She smiled and went back to throwing clothes off the rack and at him. Blair had stopped only when she could no longer see Wes's face through the pile. "Okay, that's good enough."

"Good, I don't know if I could hold this up any longer." Wes dropped the pile on the counter and the two searched the area for someone to ring up their purchase. "I wonder where they went."

"I'll check the back." Blair strolled over and looked past a red curtain to see an elderly lady kneeling on the floor with a gun to her head by a guy with a sack. Blair assumed he was robbing her and raised a finger to whisper "pump pump pumpkin."

A large pumpkin flew across the room and smashed into the guy hitting him against the wall. Blair stepped into the room. "Sorry to bother you, are you alright?"

The short woman quickly got up and hugged Blair talking so fast that Blair couldn't understand her. The woman grabbed her hand as she led Blair from the room and got on the phone. Blair walked over to Wes and told him about the guy in back. "So you are a powerful cat…"

Blair smiled as the woman hung up the phone and came to her grabbing her hand. "Oh you wonderful, wonderful child!" She said and walked out to wait for the coming police. Wes took her hand and shifted her in his direction quickly. "Wonderful indeed…"

Blair blush quickly before they both fell into a small kiss. They pulled apart and Blair laid her head on Wes chest and purred lightly. Wes smiled and looked down at her. "Hey, Blair, I was wondering, do you really like living in Death City?"

"It's nice, Blair…. I get to hang around Maka-chan and Soul-kun all day plus I have a steady job as long as Death Scythe-sama keeps coming in on Wednesdays to drink himself happy." She said and looked up quickly. "Why?"

"Well I was thinking maybe, if you like, you could to move to London with me?" Wes said, "I've already bought a house over there, and it's big and roomy, and I don't want it to be me… by myself."

Blair stopped and looked at him, "you want Blair as a pet...? Me…. I'm Soul-kun's and Maka-chan's pet."

"No, not exactly, I want you to come live with me as a girlfriend." Wes asked looking at her with a goofy smile on his face.

Blair made a loud laughing noise then quickly straightened her composure. "Okay."

The owner of the shop came back into the room with two police men and went to the back of the room and dragged the unconscious burglar out. A few seconds later both the officers stopped in front of Wes and Blair. "Excuse us, but we'll have to ask some questions. Where'd you get a pumpkin that size?"

"I don't know." Blair said cutely. "I knew I had to do something, poof! There was the pumpkin and I just tossed it at him. Am I in trouble?"

"No, oh no. You're fine miss, we just thought the pumpkin was awkward. Well… We're done then.. I think... i'm not completely sure." The police said looking back and forth between themselves. The cops shrugged and left quickly taking the man away.

"Are all these clothes… Did you want to purchase them all?" The woman said looking at the pile on the counter.

"We have credit, it's good." Wes said quickly.

"And enough cash to cover it if you don't want the credit." Blair added quickly. The woman quickly rang up the pile totaling 435.62. "Yep, we do have enough cash to cover it."

Suddenly the woman pressed a couple of buttons and put it down to 248.96. "There's no need to lower it, we can pay." Wes said offering a credit card to her.

"I insist, she saved my life, it's the least I can do." The woman said taking the card and swiping it quickly to hand it back. The woman began to bag the clothes and talk to her. "I don't know where a pumpkin that size came from, but I'm glad you got it. Oh, nice cat ears by the way."

"Oh, thank you!" Blair said happily and took half the bags. "Looks like well have to go back to the car again!"

"Again?" Wes sighed. "Why don't we just bring the car up here?" Wes asked her as they left. He directed "Thank you" at the shop keeper and the woman smiled and waved as they went out. Wes looked down the street to where the shimmering black of his car was waiting. "The trunks full, isn't it?"

"Maybe well have to buy another car?" Blair asked happily. "Hey Wes, another thing?" He looked at her and she up at him as they walked down the sidewalk. "Do you really think it would be bad for Bl… me if your parents knew I was a cat? They're okay with Soul being a scythe aren't they?"

"Well, it doesn't matter, we're going to London, you can tell them if you like." Wes said and Blair happily stopped and her tail came out from above the pants. "Tail bothering you?"

"Yea, a bit." She said and watched it moved smoothly behind her. "I'm going to have to find a good outfit to fit my tail."

"We should have brought the limo." Wes said not thinking.

"We should go get it!"

"It was a joke."

"Oh…"


	7. Chapter 7

Marie and Death Scythe poked their heads around the corner to see Kami at a bread stand. Death Scythe looked over at her, "okay, what do I do?"

"Watch. I think that guy's going to approach her. You might be able to play hero." Marie said and they watched as Kami handed the girl selling for the bakery a bill asking her to keep the change. Marie was right, a man did approach her.

"You mean hero like we did yesterday, where we still expect her to hate me some?" Death Scythe sighed and looked at him.

"Yep, you need to care about her more as a woman then your ex-wife, it'll work." Marie said. "Trust me, the Dingos are never wrong. See look, she trying to push him off. Do you need bread?"

"I don't know, Stein might have gone through all my food…" Deaht Scythe said and Marie hit him. "Ow, I get it. Well…" Death Scythe began to walk over and then pretended that he just noticed them as Kami noticed him. "Hey Kami, how's your daughter?"

The man quickly grumbled and walked away. Kami looked at him then at the man that walked away as Death Scythe moved away from her and picked up a loaf of bread and paid the girl. "What just happened?"

"He was trying to get you in bed, if you mention something about having a kid it's a real turn off, most of the time. Well, later." Death Scythe said and began to walk away with the bread. Death Scythe rounded the corner smoothly and then he and Marie dashed over to the end of the alley and disappeared behind another building.

"Step one, complete!" Marie said happily giving him a thumbs up. "So, now that you're not so bastardized in her eyes, we can make a little progress. That however will come tomorrow. Go enjoy your bread." Marie said and began to walk away.

"Here." Death Scythe said, she turned around in time to catch the bread. "I'm sure Stein didn't do anything to my food, you can keep it, and Stein doesn't seem the type to go shopping often."

"He's not. Thanks, see you tomorrow." Marie walked away and Death Scythe slid down the wall and sat for a minute having nothing better to do.

_________________________________________

"That's him over there." Maka said looking over at the man sitting in the tree eating a squirrel. "He may seem like nothing, but the Kishin eggs pretty far along."

"Well, this is our only summer mission, let's make it quick." Soul said happily. Maka stepped forward with the scythe in hand and slowly crept up to the tree where the man didn't notice her. She stepped up on a rock just behind him and raised Soul. The man jumped down and took notice of them before she could swing. To wings came out and the man began to fly away. "He's going towards town!"

"I know!" Maka said sprinting behind the Kishin egg. She dodged carefully the limbs of the trees and broke through to the street and saw that the man landed in the middle of a crowd and picked up a woman with an arm. "Hey over here!"

Maka screamed and wailed the scythe down on the creature catching him at the neck and slicing him. The body disappeared and the woman dropped to her feet. Soul grabbed an arm out and grabbed the Kishin egg and fully returned to human. "Thirty-eight…" He smiled over at her and ate it.

"If we keep up this pace, then we might get back to facing a witch for her soul by the end of next year." Maka said happily she stretched and looked around as the people looked at them. "Hey Soul, why are we the center of attention?"

"Shibusen never comes out here, I'm probably the first weapon ever to step foot in this town." He said and then heard a screeching from the crowd. Soul didn't hesitate but actually picked Maka up and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the noise. Soul turned a corner quickly and rushed her into a flower shop, "Normal!"

The woman at the counter smiled and nodded as Soul went into the back room and set Maka down. He raised a hand to his mouth for her to be quiet. The door opened, there was a loud disgruntled noise and the door slammed shut. There was a kick on the wall followed by a second kick shortly after.

"Out the back." Soul whispered and slowly moved over to a large red door and opened it to outside putting them right back in the forest. Soul took her hand and began leading her away.

"What's going on?" Maka asked quickly as they began to hurry back to his house. "You're acting like we're in danger."

"I'm in annoyance, you could possible be in danger. She's psycho." Soul moved her farther into the forest and kept walking. Maka slid her hand out and stopped. "Listen, she's bad news, we have to get up to the house."

"No one's that bad."

"She's more hyper then Black Star, and more obsessive then your dad. She's that bad." Soul pleaded with her to try to get her moving and Maka leaned against a tree.

"What happened between you two?"

"Day before I left, she tried to rape me, I accidentally cut her arm open trying to get her off. So, she went to the hospital, got it sown up and tried again, luckily my mother beat her off with a pool cue." Soul said quickly. "Now can we go, I don't feel like getting raped."

"She seriously tried to rape you?" Soul nodded slowly. Maka grabbed his hand. "Let's just hope she never meets me…" Soul smiled at the thought of Maka beating her up.


	8. Chapter 8

Stein had laughed out loud when he read on his computer who the mayor of Death City was, the fact that he had been mayor since he was five and that he had been sitting in his class for most of the year. Stein didn't need directions; everyone knew where his house was. He didn't need anything to take with him; he had his threat ready, though he was sure if it would do any good seeing as he didn't need to attend school at all.

It did surprise the mayor however when his teacher showed up and he didn't have time to changed out of a pink cleaning apron with a bright pink bandana with 'Sassy' on it and yellow cleaning gloves. "Before you say anything, Stein, this is Liz's cleaning outfit, not mine."

"Right… So you're the mayor, eh, Kid?" Stein said walking in to the sparkling mansion.

"That's right, what's this about?" Death the Kid said turning to face him and shutting the door. "If you're upset about the property tax hike, I can't do anything, it was a mileage for the school; the city council did it."

"Actually I supported that, plus, I don't pay my taxes anyway." Stein said and saw a chair to throw himself down in. "Do you know Norman Hartwell?"

"Yes, he's the only one running, why?" Kid asked and stood in front of Stein. "He's doing it legally, although it may be annoying. Posting signs everywhere…. They are so unsymmetrical."

"Norman Hartwell is an asshole. He's an upright perfectionist who thinks one flaw is enough reason to kill a person." Stein said. "Do you know what he'll do to Death City?" Kid shook his head slowly. "Let's just say on the first day half the city will be gone. I need you to run again."

"Out of the question." Kid said quickly. "When I was five, my father thought my intelligence was astounding, he thought it'd be 'cute' to write my name in and showed that he thought I should be mayor. I won by a landslide…."

"Everyone wrote you in?" Stein asked.

"My father was the only one to vote, it's also how I won the last election. However, with Norman running, he can be mayor even when my father goes to drop the write-in ballot with my name on it, I can concede. I hate being mayor… the office is unsymmetrical. All the paper work has the Death City logo in the right hand corner, and not the center. I always have to sign at the bottom right, not in the center. The paragraphs aren't even centered."

"Norman's going to kick you out too. He'd view you phobia of the unsymmetrical as odd." Stein said.

"I'm Death the Kid, son of Shinigami; no one kicks me out of my father's soul." Kid said very seriously. "Anyways, it's not like he hates you or something." Kid laughed until he realized Stein wasn't talking. "He hates you?"

"Senior year, we elected him class president, he tried to have uniforms, removal of all things he deemed not having to deal with catching Kishin Eggs such as the gym portion of school. In reality, he was a fat idiot who had no sense of fashion." Stein said. "He told me I was a freak once, I lost it and threw him off a cliff."

"And you didn't get suspended?" Kid asked surprised.

"Everyone hated him, I loathed him, he thought I was disgusting and vile because I'm a bit off. We have to get someone to out run him."

"Good luck with that, the only two ballots in the box election day will be my father's and Normans." Kid grumbled and looked towards his teacher. "I like my normal outfit… There's a rule. If you can catch him committing a felony, he can't run for mayor. It's an old law, I've tried to get out of being mayor that way. My father thought it was cute when I failed to kill someone with a water pistol."

"Water pistols don't do much damage." Stein stood up. "I'm going to go talk to your father."

"Good luck…"

_____________________________________

"Me and Norman are the only registered voters right nooooow." Shinigami said happily. "If you don't want Norman to win, I suggest you find someone to write in. But you'll have to register first."

"I haven't paid my taxes since… I was 18, I should probably be in jail for it." Stein muttered.

"I never pay my taxes, and I own the school and the mansion." Shinigami said.

"You've got God-exemption status. Can't we just take away the mayor position, all they do is taxes?" Stein asked pacing back and forth in Shinigami's office. "And the baby kissing on the head thing…"

"Yeah, but you see, if the mayor's position gets terminated, then I have to do taxes, and I haaaaaaaaaaaaate taxes. Plus I'm really terrible at math, which is why it's 99 souls and 1 witch soul, keeps it even at one hundred." Shinigami said. "If you're so upset, why don't you run?"

"If you weren't voting for kid would you vote for me?" Stein asked and Shinigami sighed shaking his head. "Exactly."

"Oh well, if you find a third runner than you could stop the coming tie between Kid-o and Norman, but if you can't, then you'll have to deal, okaaaaaay?"

"Alright, I'll find something to do to stop this."

"Okay good luck." Shinigami said and went back to watch Kid on his mirror. "He looks so cute in that cleaning outfiiiiit. I should go say hi!" Shinigami quickly stepped through the mirror and popped out of on in his dining room. "KID-O! You look so nice in that cleaning outfit, it's soooo cute!"

"I DON'T LOOK CUTE!" Kid yelled throwing the bandana off.

"You do look cute." "Awdowable!" The Thompson sisters said leaning in the room and looking at him. "Aw, didn't you like my head band?"

"It's a girl's headband."

"I'm a girl. Well were off to enjoy our day off." "Yeah, we don't have to dress like Kid!" The twin guns left leaving Kid looking up at his father who had his head cocked. Death the Kid quickly picked up the bandana and put it back on. "Don't say anything…"

"So cuuute."

"THAT'S ANYTHING!"


	9. Chapter 9

"Seriously, you have your own ballroom?" Maka said walking in behind Soul into the large room lines with marble and mirrors. Soul walked over to one of the large French doors and opened it stepping onto one of the balconies to see the folded up wooden chair hidden behind a plant, he pulled it out and sat down. "That's yours I take it?"

"Every week before my brother went on tour, we had a party because he played at the local house. It was filled with snobs, and I'm not the type to stay around them too long." Soul said and tossed his feet up on the railing. "Mom hates it when I come out here, says I look like a vagrant."

"In that?" Maka asked noting that Soul had been forced into his old outfit of a white button up shirt and dress pants with shined shoes. "Does she know what a vagrant is?"

"Who knows." It was then Soul heard fast clicking on the floor, the sound of heels, his mother. He quickly got up and hid the chair away to stand up and walk in the ball room. "Hello mother."

She walked in and placed a hand on his shoulder, "she was spotted on the grounds, snuck in again. Grandma's in her hunting outfit with her pistol, ugh…" His mother said quickly. "Why does everything have to fall apart today, why not after the party? Anyway…"

"Be on alert. Don't worry." Soul said quickly. "Plus, I have a miester." Soul said and Margo smiled happily over at Maka. She quickly took off and went down the hall; Soul assumed she was getting the entire place on alert.

"Why don't you just call the cops?"

"She has connections, her fathers on the police force." Soul said and walked over to a covered white piano. He sat down and flipped the lid up. "Hey, come 'ere."

"What?" she asked quickly and sat down next to him. Soul picked her up and moved her on his lap and grabbed her hands. "What are you doing?"

"This is how Grandma taught me how to play piano." Soul said and set his hands under hers. "Keeps your hands with mine and your fingers on top of mine, then once you get the keys down, you play it yourself."

"Alright." She said and Soul slowly played a very simplified version of Ode to Joy and paused afterwards. "Again." Maka ordered and he played it again and she watched very carefully and tried to learn the keys. "Okay let me try."

Soul moved his arms down to her waste and leaned over her shoulder to watch. "One key lower." He corrected and Maka moved her hand and was able to play the first three notes than stopped. "I forgot already."

"That's fine, nobody ever said piano was easy." Soul said and began to trace his hands across her stomach.

"You're trying to be distracting aren't you?" Maka giggled and turned to look at him. Smiling he leaned in which proved to be a bad idea. The bench fell over backwards, the two spilled on to the floor with a loud thud, the piano chair hitting making the loudest noise. They laughed a bit until they say a figure in front of them that Maka didn't recognize but Soul did and he yelled. "MOTHER!"

"She's outside." The young girl said, she was probably an inch or two shorter then Maka with well maintained black curled hair. She offered a hand up to Soul and smiled. "Come along."

Soul actually instead grabbed Maka tighter. "Go away."

"Let go of her!"

"Fuck you!" Soul growled at her and kept his grip on Maka. Maka stopped, she never heard Soul swear at anybody. The girl stomped her foot, and that's how Maka didn't notice her coming in, she was barefoot, she had her shoes in her hand. "Get out of here Jennifer, you're trespassing."

"You'd seriously want her over me, she doesn't even have a chest. Her face is plain and she's probably horribly uncultured." Jennifer hissed disgusted. "You'd want that over me."

Maka released his hands and got up to brush the skirt Blair had gotten her off. "I don't believe we've meet, which is a good thing." Maka quickly walked foreword. "I don't beat on people I know."

Jennifer swung a shoe at her which Maka dodge and countered with a sharp elbow to the stomach. The girl went flying. Maka walked over to where she was sitting up on the floor. "If you come after my boyfriend again, I'll do worse then that to you."

"She _protects _you, isn't that rather man-ish?" Jennifer mocked getting up.

Maka smiled and looked back at Soul who still hadn't gotten up, she had a quickly little smirk and turned away from him. Soul was now worried Maka might actually kill her. "You were right, she is stupid." Jennifer and Soul both stopped, "not to mention you can tell she's had extensions, and look how hip-y she is."

"What?" Jennifer said surprised.

"Yea, you were defiantly right Soul, she does look like a whore." Maka said quickly. "She even applies make-up like a five year old would."

Maka didn't hit Jennifer, but made her cry. She bawled and ran from the room. Soul got up shocked by what had happened and put an arm around Maka. "You're vicious. You're not man-ish, you're like a rottweiler or a pit-bull or something else that would tear an arm off."

"Did I go over board?" Maka asked a little worried that she might have put Soul off some.

"I like rottweilers." Soul said quickly moved over put the seat back up. "Do you want to try again?"

Maka rushed over and sat on his lap letting his hands fall on top of hers. Soul played the first part and pulled back to let Maka try and repeat it, she got to five notes this time.

_________________________________________________

Bright and Margo watched as Jennifer ran from their home and down the drive. Margo turned to her husband and smiled. "I really like Maka, maybe we can try to get her to marry Soul?"

"Margo…" Bright said labored and followed her inside.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey Death Scythe, picked up the mail for you." Marie said walking in with a smoothie in one hand and a small crumpled envelope in the other. "So, are you ready for today's man training? Today we're actually going to talk to Kami."

"I got mail? This is weird." He said playing around with the letter simply reading 'Death Scythe, Death City, URGENT' He ripped the envelope open and read some quick chicken scratch. Death Scythe made a slight chocking noise and tossed the letter down. "Do you remember Nuru Olubunmi?"

Death Scythe got up and began walking down the hall. Marie quickly rose and followed him. "Nuru, as in, your adopted little sister, she was Stein's partner too? The white scythe?"

"That's her, I got an SOS from her." Death Scythe grabbed what seemed to be the large curtain for a window and pulled it back showing a grand mirror. "You can hop mirrors, right. You're able to do that, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not that powerful. 'Friad that's just you and Shinigami." She said and saw Death Scythe touch it and it went to a small reflection on a street. He quickly walked through leaving Marie yelling: "Hey where are you going?"

Death Scythe ran down a street in some unknown town, in an unknown country and ran over to what looked like some cheap hotel. He didn't waste any time actually going to a door, there was a number in the letter telling him which one. The scythe kicked open the door to 112 and found the room empty, a couple blood spatters in assorted places and some junk food wrappers on the floor. "Nu! Nu!"

There was a loud bang from the closet. Death Scythe quickly grabbed the door and ripped it open to see a small young woman with bruises on her face that could be see against her carmal complexion. Death Scythe quickly stepped in and knelt down removing the gag from her mouth. "What happened?"

"My meister, he's gone crazy." She cried softly. "He's been killing innocents and eating their souls himself. He's becoming a kinshin." She said and Death Scythe quickly began untying her.

"Why couldn't you cut yourself lose?"

"Witch's rope, it doesn't cut." She said and Death Scythe untied her and grabbed her by the arm pulling her to her feet. "We've got to get out of here."

Her words were drowned out by a horrible screaming. The two looked to the door to see a haggardly old woman step in front of it. She cackled and stepped into the room. "Ti Ti tiger." Nuru was hit backwards by an invisible force that left her dress cut and showing blood from claw wounds. The woman went to move another finger and Death Scythe ran and changed throwing himself at the witch. She landed in to two piece that disappeared giving rise to a small purple soul that Death Scythe quickly ate. "Tastes like cheese… Must be in Wisconsin."

"France." Nuru corrected as Death Scythe picked her up. "I can walk."

"It'll be faster, plus I came by mirror." He said and stepped outside to see Nuru's meister, he was buff and defiantly looked like a guy who'd hit a woman. Death Scythe was about to set her down when a leg appeared in front of the miester's face, opened and captured him, cutting off the top of his head. As the miester toppled over Justin Law landed, his head phones blaring loudly. "Justin."

"HELLO DEATH SCYTHE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER HERE?" Justin yelled happily. Death Scythe's eye twitched a bit and Justin remember his warning and took off his head phones. "So, what's going on?"

"I'm playing hero, this is the damsel in distress and you're the comic relief." Death Scythe said and began walking, "how long has Shibusen known about his activities?"

"About… twenty minutes. I just saw him conspiring with that witch over the weapon's soul. Now, where is the weapon?" Justin asked following him. "I need to get him to safety."

"Taken care of." Death Scythe said quickly.

"And I'm a she." Nuru corrected she suddenly felt dizzy and became aware she was somewhere else. "Ugh, so that's what it feels like going through a mirror."

"Death Scythe…" Said Justin from the mirror. Marie who was standing by waved at him. Justin quickly nodded and waved back. "Death Scythe, it's my jurisdiction, I'm going to need to… Does he always do that?"

"Well, she's very important to him, he helped raise her." Marie said. "We'll get this all squared away, don't worry." She said and closed the curtain on him. Marie quickly began walking behind him and caught up and looked to Nuru. "Hi Nuru, you probably don't remember me, do you?"

"Uh…" She said and shook her head. "The eye patch is familiar, something about crushing something…."

"I'm Marie, I'm a hammer." She said and stuck out a hand. Nuru reached out a thin hand and shook hers. "When was the last time you ate, poor thing?"

"It's probably going to have to wait until after the stitches." Death Scythe said and was actually relieved to see Stein had walked into his house unannounced. Death Scythe set Nuru down on the table and pointed to her, "Stein, sow her up."

"Hey Nuru." Stein said and pulled a needle and some thread. "I think I have a theory on Norman."

"Don't worry about that, fix my little sister." Death Scythe said angrily.

"Right Sempai." Stein said and bent her down and began looking at the scars and dipped the needle into her stomach. She clenched and Death Scythe sat down in a chair and grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"You haven't gotten any better at the pain part, have you Stein?" Nuru asked and Stein laughed a little and kept going. Nuru turned to Death Scythe, "Spirit, where's Kami at?"

Death Scythe stopped, "we divorced almost a year ago… I suppose you were cut off."

"That sucks. You messed up, I liked Kami. She was so nice." Nuru said and screamed a little as the need dipped in again. A few minutes later, Stein was finished and she sat straight up. "Well, that's still unpleasant. I'm going to go raid your room for clothing, alright, Spirit?"

"Sure Nuru, if you look in the closet I think I might have some of Kami's clothes left over." He said and watched her disappear. "Poor kid, getting beaten like that and still thinks nothing of it."

"Well, she gets her attitude from you." Stein said and looked over at Marie and back at him. "I'll be by later with my theory." Stein turned and vacated quickly.

"Is he upset at me?" Marie asked, "he's avoiding me like…. A person who avoids me."

"It's Stein, and he thinks someone's out to kill him, so he's being weird…er." Death Scythe explained. As they heard the obvious destruction of his bedroom he sighed and hatched an idea. "Have you tried cornering him and asking him what's wrong?"

"Well, no…" Marie said and began thinking.


	11. Chapter 11

"You look fine, come on, it's just dinner. My mom over exaggerates the importance." Soul said leaning against the door frame of the room Maka was given. The room to Maka's surprise was as big as their entire apartment and the bathroom was as big as her living room. Maka adjusted the bottom of the plain white dress and shifted in it. "After that there's two hours until the party to get ready."

"I know. Blair bought me a different dress for that." Maka said and took Soul's hand and left the room. Both their shoes clicked against the marble and they went down the stairs to a large room with a huge table inside and everyone was huddled towards one end. At the head sat Bright and to his right were Wes and Blair who had ears and tail horribly visible. To Mr. Evans' left was Margo who was staring quite awkwardly at Blair. Soul and Maka sat down next to his mother and waited for something to happen.

"You're… a cat?" Margo asked looking at her. Blair quickly changed into her cat form, strutted and changed back in her seat giggling. "A cat?"

"Yep." Blair chimed happily.

"You purr?" Blair nodded. "Eat raw fish?" Nodded. "Chase mice?"

"No, I like mice, I have some as friends."

"A cat?"

"Mother!" Wes said upset at her and she snapped out of it a little and laid her napkin on her lap and turned to Maka who was two heads away. "Hello Maka. She's a cat."

"She's our cat, she lives with us." Soul said, "she's a pet that isn't a pet but rather crashes on the couch." Soul said trying to explain it and failing.

"Mom, just get over it." Wes said quickly and she pointed a finger. "Mother, sorry."

"Margo, drop the cat thing. I think it's great, cats are like… they always land on their feet." Bright said trying to help his eldest but also failing.

"Ninjas tend to land on their feet too." Grandma said walking in her clothing just a pair of old shorts, a tee-shirt and a black leather fringed jacket. "I'd love to be a ninja!" Grandma pulled out a chair and sat down next to Blair. "Hi honey, nice ears and tail, they real?"

"Yep." Blair said happily and pulled her hair to show where the ears joined to her skull.

"Awesome. So, Margo, since you can't cook, what'd you order Biggie to make us?" She said and tossed her feet up on the chair next to her, she was barefoot.

Soul leaned over to Maka, "in case of a mom-grandma fight, hide under the table, alright?" Maka just nodded slowly and watched the women's stand off.

"Well grandmother, Biggie is making chicken." Margo said slowly and cheered up. "It's Wes's favorite, right sweetie?"

"Yea, I'm probably going to miss that the most." Wes said and everyone stared at him and he looked at her, smile on his face. "I bought the house in London, Blair and I are moving there."

Everyone went quite except Blair and Grandma. "That's great; no I have a reason to spontaneously hop over to the UK. They have some of the world's best pubs." Grandma said and began talking with Blair.

Soul and Maka looked at each other, both were happy and sad.

_________________________________________________

For Death Scythe's idea of corning Stein, Marie had come up with a variation, she decided just to trap him. She figured he could escape if she cornered him. Marie followed him back to his house and caught him going into his room; there was no way out of his room except for the door. As the door was closing behind him, she caught it, "Hey Stein?"

He stopped and looked at her, the room's light still of gave him a creepy shadow so Marie couldn't tell what was on his face. The fact that she would actually have to get an answer out of Stein didn't cross her mind until then. "Hm?"

"Um… I was just wondering…" She said and took a deep breath. "Are you angry at me or something?"

"What?" Stein asked and opened the door back up and stepped into the door frame looking down at her.

"Well, you get up and leave the room every time I come in and…" She said nervously not really knowing what to say. "I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

"NO, no, no, no, no…no." Stein said going through his mind and filing things in and out. "It's just I'm a bit edgy from the theory and everything. No, God no, wipe that idea from your head." Stein raised a hand and held it over his forehead for a second. "You remember Norman, from our grade."

"The guy you kicked into the Grand Canyon?" Marie asked and Stein opened the door to his room and flipped on the switch.

"Was that the place I did it at?" Stein asked trying to remember and shuffled through some newspapers on the floor sitting down next to the stack. He flipped through the file and quickly grabbed another stack and flipped through it and pulled out yesterday morning's newspaper. He turned past the picture of Vivian to open the paper and folded it to the article. He raised his hand and offered it to Marie. She walked in nervously and took it and began to read. She finished it and handed it back. "It's like he's talking to you personally, he used to call you crack pot, didn't he?"

Stein nodded. "I know he's up to something to get me back, I just don't know what."

"I'll go talk to him." Marie offered. "We weren't friends, but we weren't enemies, I'm sure he'll at least talk to me. I'll avoid saying anything about you."

Stein stayed quiet for a minute. "I'd prefer if you didn't, but I need to know."

"Don't worry." Marie said smiling and crossing her arms, "if he pisses me off I'll just beat him senseless." Stein liked that idea and laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry, this was supposed to be up Thursday. The three for this week will be going up soon. - Aki**

Maka had no idea what to do with a poll cue seeing as she had never played pool. Soul's Uncle Frank carried them around with him, he was a professional pool player, one of the world's best and wanted every child to play, so he gave away pool cues. After receiving it Soul told her just to go set it in her room, she did and was met on the way back by Margo. "So Maka, do you like our family so far?"

"You guys are all really generous, I think it's wonderful." She said and was brought to a pair of elderly woman by Soul's mother. Soul quickly saw this and smiled to walk up.

"Maka this is Aunt Geneva and Aunt Kristi. Ladies this is Maka Albarn, she's Soul Eater's girlfriend." Maka quickly curtsied in the light blue dress Blair had bought her. The aunts awed. Soul came up and slid his hand into hers and the aunts smiled and went off on how cute they looked.

"Adorable. A pretty girl like you needs a pretty necklace, wouldn't you say, Geneva?" Kristi said and opened a bag and pulled out a small black book and opened it up to reveal several silver and gold necklaces all with hanging jewels. "Here, my dear, pick two out, I have plenty, my husband's a jeweler."

"Thank you." Maka said and picked out a sterling silver chain with a diamond hanging off it. Soul then grabbed a gold chain with a small flower on it.

"This one would be cute on you." Soul quickly, and without effort, draped it around her neck. He smiled at her.

"They're so beautiful." Maka said and looked at the flower. She handed off the other for Soul to put away in a pocket.

"It looks absolutely wonderful on her." Geneva said. "Well don't stand here hanging around us old bats, go have fun children." She said happily. Soul dragged Maka away and took her over to the piano where Wes and his dad were pulling out shimmering white violins.

Soul patted the seat and sat down. "After this we can go see Grandma, it's tradition that at everyone of our parties we play together."

"That's so cool." She said and moved in next to him. Wes hit a string and began making jokes with his dad about flats that she didn't get, but obviously Soul did because he laughed along with them.

It was then and without any notice at all Bright began to play better and faster then any she'd ever heard. He ended a little quip and looked to Wes and tapped his foot three time and both of them played the small bit again, Wes's was a tinge higher. As soon as they finished Soul began on a slow paced melody that both Bright and Wes soon joined in when they quickly picked up the pace again.

The private concert went uninterrupted, not one note was missed of the joyful song. Some of the relatives had gathered in the center and were dancing to it. The violin's finished an astonishing thirteen or fourteen minutes later and the piano had a few last keys and a roar of applause went up from the room. Wes laughed. "You know, hearing it twenty times a year, you'd think they'd get tired of it."

Bright laughed and patted his eldest son's shoulders and the two took a bow. Soul quickly got up and bowed as well. "Come on, let's go see Grandma."

Soul offered her his hand. "Alright." She said and they walked out of the room quickly and exited through the main doors to see all the shimmering cars in the moonlight. "I don't know what could ever make you want to leave this place. Besides…."

"Soul!" Yelled a voice behind them and he turned his head to see Jennifer in a party dress.

"Soul, change." Maka said quietly. "We'll scare her off." Soul nodded and transformed into the scythe, Maka swung him with ease and pointed the blade at her throat. "I don't know who you think you are, but you had better leave us alone. I was pleasant to you earlier, I won't do that again."

"Soul's mine." She said and pulled out a revolver. "Give him to me."

Maka stopped, she was fully unprepared for this. Soul quickly changed back and walked over to her grabbing the gun and throwing it away in the grass. "What'd you want? Seriously."

"You."

"No. What'd you want? Money, fame, what is it?" He asked and shoved a hand in his pocket keeping his right hand ready, that was the one that transformed. "I can't give you any of those, and I sure as Hell loathe you so love is completely out of the question. What'd you want?"

"I want you." She said again smiling and tried to touch him but Soul recoiled and changed his arm.

"No! Tell me what you want so you'll leave me alone." Soul said and raised the blade to her.

"Soul! Maka!" Said a voice behind them and Blair came walking up with a fish tail in her hand. "I heard it all, let Blair-chan handle this." Soul changed his arm back and grabbed Maka and began towards the guest house. There were several loud pumpkin crushing noises.

"This is how I can't stay here, she's the reason, day in and day out unless I physically injure her enough to send her to the hospital." Soul said upset and Maka looked at him.

"I can call Papa. He can come and get us through the mirror if you really want to leave." Maka said softly. Soul nodded still quite upset and they stopped next to Grandma's front porch and sat down on the edge. Maka dug through her purse, pulled out the phone and began dialing. "Hey Papa. We want to come home, could you come through a mirror in a few minutes?" Death Scythe asked a few quick questions and Maka told him where they were. "Thanks Papa, I love you too. Bye."

Maka turned to her boyfriend who was just staring at the ground clenching his teeth. "Soul, are you going to be alright?"

"I'm, I'm just so pissed off right now." Soul said and his hands clenched around the porch's edge. Maka moved around his back and cuddled to it draping her arms around him. "Think happy thoughts. Only happy."

Soul's hand relaxed and he lowered his head. "I'll be happier when we get out of here." Soul grabbed one of her hands and kissed the back of it.

"How cute!" Grandma said walking out and sitting down next to Soul. "I remember, this one time Mary Winebred got your grandfather so upset, he threw a chair out the window, you know what happened?"

"The window… broke." Soul said trying to see the moral of the story.

"It killed his cat. So anger is bad, and we don't take it out on people, alright, sweetie?" She said and patted his cheek quickly. "Remember the peaceful rabbit may be taken over by the vicious hawk, but it has no regrets on life."

"That was beautiful." Maka said thinking out loud.

"It's why I'm a poet. Plus the hawk's going to Hell." Grandma said happily; she began laughing and snorted. Soul shook his head and smiled. "Ha, he's smiling, old grams does it again! No nursing home for me!" Grandmother Evans kept going on and on, story after story until a familiar figure walked up. "Hey there handsome, you want to sit down too, were just telling stories."

"If it's alright with Maka." Death Scythe said sitting down. "I must say Soul; your parents were quite friendly considering I scared half their guests out of their wits."

"Did the lady with the giant diamond necklace scare?" Soul asked quickly and Death Scythe nodded. "There ya go grams, he scared Mom."

"She deserves it!" Grandma said and started in on a different story about his mother.


	13. Chapter 13

Marie opened the door to Stein's house and stepped in quietly and saw the familiar glow of a lit cigarette in the darkness. She hung up her keys and flipped the switch on the wall to see Stein huffing away at a cigarette at the table. "I thought you were going to quit."

"I did, this is my first one in weeks.Don't worry, I'm not picking it back up." Stein said and put it out in the ash tray. Marie pulled a seat out next him and threw herself down. "Didn't go well I take it?"

"He's an ass. The entire time I tried talking to him he was staring at my chest. Then he actually grabbed me, I sent him to the hospital, he'll be out in the morning." Marie said upset. Stein got up from the table and went down the hall. Marie watched him as he disappeared into the lab and come out a few seconds later with a large file and a small file. "What's this?"

Stein tossed down the large file. "That's everything I have on Norman from kindergarten foreword. I decided it was best to keep files on those around me." He said and opened it and put it in front of her.

"And before you ask." He said and held out the thin folder with the tab labeled 'Mjölnir, Marie' in sloppy writing. Stein leaned back and stared at the half-smoke cigarette in the try wishing he didn't know that it was a bad time to be smoking.

"You have a file on me?" Marie asked somewhat surprised and opened it slowly and pulled a paper clip off to look at some pictures of her as a kid through her teenaged years. "Oh, I look so cute in this one. Can I have it?"

"You can take the file; I have no use of it. I have no plans on black mailing you." He said slowly and pulled out some newspaper clippings from the other side. "Here's you in the newspaper for homecoming."

"Aw! I wish I still had that dress." She said looking at it sweetly. Setting everything back in her folder she closed it and grabbed Norman's, "so what was your idea?"

"There's enough in there to black mail him for his mother's soul. Pick out a couple things; we can have them sent to the newspaper for tomorrow." Stein said and returned to staring at the cigarette butt.

Marie quickly ruffled through notes, clippings and embarrassing photos. She pulled out a slew of them and set them aside. "I want these to go."

Stein picked a few up and laughed, "this one my favorite, mainly because it's the first time I ever thought of Yumi as cool. 'A full editorial on why our senior class president sucks by Yumi Azura.' He even pissed her off." Stein laughed a little and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled something down signing it 'crack pot'. He set the piece of paper on the stack and smiled.

"Why'd you sign it? He'd know it was you." Marie asked looking at it.

"I want him to know. Let him come after me, I'm not scared of him." Stein said and got up to grab a random zip lock and shove everything in it. He stopped, "you know, neither of us can take it to the editor, we can't be linked to it."

"Let's enlist the help of somebody, who's the closest person who'd do it for free?" Marie asked and saw Stein turn his bolt a couple times with a drudging look on his face.

____________________________________________________________

"Are you serious?" Marie asked standing in front of the house. "He's a little… um…"

"He'll think it's training in stealth or something." Stein said and walked up to the door and knocked. He waited a minute and Black Star opened the door shoving food in his face. "Can we talk with you for a minute?"

"Sure Sensei." He said and crammed more food into his mouth. He opened the door and let them in to the house which was actually very clean. "So?" Black Star finished his meal and licked off his fingers. "If I'm getting held back…"

"No, this has nothing to do with school." Stein assured quickly.

"We have a favor to ask of you, if you wouldn't mind. We need you to deliver this to the editor at the newspaper without anyone seeing you." She said handing him the zip lock full of papers.

"And what do I get out of this?" He asked looking at the bag. "Better be good seeing as I think you two are up to something." He said smiling and looked at them with a deviant flare in his eyes. "I know when people are up to something."

"We're trying to ruin someone's life." Stein said frankly. "Alright, now, how about I give you a flat line D- guaranteed. You'll have to do all the tests and everything, but no matter what, I won't let you fail next year. Deal?" Stein asked offering his hand out.

Black Star laughed and shook it. "You are possibly the best teacher ever. I'll get on that. Later!" He said and ran out the door and into an alleyway.

"That was easy." Marie said and Stein began walking out. "Hey where are you going?"

"I'm going to collect my change, I have to buy tomorrow's newspaper." He said and Marie rolled her eyes and followed him out of the house. She closed the door and began following after him. "How mad do you think he'll be, honestly?"

"I think he'll kill you." Marie said and began looking around nervously. "Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched."

"Yea." Stein said as his eyes quickly darted over to a small patch of grass where a frog and a mouse sat. The frog ribbited and quickly hopped away from his sight. The mouse stood up and bowed only to follow the frog. "I think you're just being paranoid. Norman doesn't know I read the newspaper."

"I know, but what if he catches us and does something horrible?" Marie asked rubbing her arms nervously. "And it's after sundown too."

Stein stopped, "you're a death scythe, I'm the most powerful miester that's ever come out of Shibusen. Relax." After he said it, he realized he said it too heartlessly. He sighed in his head and cautiously put an arm around her shoulders causing her to look up at him. "I'm sure they'll attack me, not you."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." She said and Stein waited and waited as they walked. She didn't even tried to shrug off his hand.


	14. Chapter 14

Stein unlocked the door to his house and opened the door for Marie to go in. Suddenly he heard heels clicking up from behind him and turned around to see a tall, tan woman in a short red dress and red heels coming towards him.

There were two exact thoughts going through his head at that point. The first he was sure was his; it was pretending he didn't see the supermodel heading for him and go inside with Marie. The second he was sure Death Scythe might have put into his head because it went 'This is Vivian Leandros, the hottest person ever to come out of Greece' which happened to be his exact words yesterday. He couldn't help it, he looked at her. "Viv, is that you?"

"You recognized me! Hey Franken!" She said in a sultry voice and raced on the porch and hugged him easily being near his height. "It's been too long, how have you been?"

"Good, really good. How's everything with your career going?" He asked and she leaned back and smiled up through a light coating of make-up.

"It's going great, were in negotiations for a movie right now, it's going to be so exciting." She said and clasped her hands together and blushed like a little kid would. "There's a party starting in twenty minutes, I was wondering if you'd like to go with me so we could catch up."

"I don't know if I should." Stein said and that was the truth, he hadn't actually thought of what she wanted, and he wasn't sure that he should go with her if he thought he liked Marie. "A party starting at 10 at night?"

"Don't you want to see the look on Norman's face when I show up with you? He's been asking me to go with him all day and I keep telling him no, and I have to go to the party since it's for me. I just really don't want his grubby little hands going places."

Stein smiled, "I guess, I'd better change then." He said and held open the door for her, she walked gracefully in and saw Marie sitting at a table sipping at tea. Stein walked in and the two of them looked at him. "Marie, you remember Vivian from our grade. Vivian, you actually probably remember her better."

"You hit me once because I was talking about doing something stupid." Vivian said happily. "It was our senior year I haven't had a chance to thank you for that!" She said excitedly and rushed over to Marie and began chatting away as supermodels have a tendency to do, but this time, it was a huge thank you and not at all about herself.

Stein disappeared down the hall and Vivian invited herself into a seat. She looked down the hall and turned back to Marie. "Do think that was bad just showing up like that?"

"In what way?" Marie asked not getting the question.

"Do you think he likes me?" Vivian asked quickly in a hushed voice leaning over next to her. "I've had the hugest crush on him since I was twelve and he never seems to really pay attention to me."

Marie laughed a little and smiled warmly. "There's no love in that man." She said repeating Nygus's words from when they fled DC. "Don't take it personally, it's who he is. He lives to dissect things."

"Should I let him dissect me?" Vivian posed a rather stupid question and Marie was about to hit her when she heard a noise from down the hall.

"Heavens no. Who knows how you'll be put back together." Marie said and the two burst out laughing as Stein walked down actually looking nice, both were somewhat shocked. His glasses were off, his hair was somewhat styled, and he had changed into a black pants and black jacket with a blood red shirt on that matched Vivian's dress all in a matter of two minutes.

"Am I being made fun of?" He asked looking at the two of them.

"In the worst way possible of course!" Vivian joked and laughed in a perfect way, stood up and quickly adjusted her necklace pulling black locks of hair from around it. "I'll have him back in one piece."

"Lock the doors; I'll use my keys to get in." Stein said and offered out an arm to the model. A hand slipped inside of it and they took off with out another word. The door shut and Marie got up and locked the door as quietly as possible and slowly wandered over to her chair and pulled her feet up, knees next to her chest.

Slowly her arms landed on her knees and she wrapped herself into a cocoon where she felt safer. _'It's just I'm a bit edgy from the theory and everything. No, God no, wipe that idea from your head_.' Marie's head lowered in her chair. 'Edgy? You've been avoiding me and take off with her.'

A small stream of tears rolled down her face and she began crying a bit. 'I know you don't mean to, but you're messing with my head.' Marie remember not fifteen minutes ago he had elected to put an arm around her. He allowed her in his room which wasn't allowed to anyone. Before Marie realized it, her hands had been grasped around her head and she looked around, grabbed the folder with her name on it and began reading his notes on her.

It was a look inside Stein's head at her she looked at them over and over again. She lifted up the final one, the notes stopped at graduation. Turning her head, Marie saw something and lifted up the far corner and saw a torn piece of paper with the date she had left for Australia earlier in the year.

She wiped the tears from her face and got up to walk back to his lab. There was the open box of folders with a crumpled piece of paper next to it. The writing was much clearer, it was the missing page. She began to walk back and read it and stopped when she hit the table unable to fully comprehend the sentence. "Stein… got me those flowers? _Marie seemed to like them but didn't give any clues to whether or not she actually was fond of them. When leaving she did proceed to hug me but to take it as any more then friendship would be foolish. Spirit when hearing my story took me out to get drunk where I did think I may have admitted to him the extent of my affections. He told me to go for it, but then again it's him. I don't really know what to do with her plus Medusa is after me and I'm still having a hard time dealing with the nightmare. I really wish I hadn't just dissected my last animal the other day, I really need to cut something open."_

Marie didn't notice but the entire time she had been backing up, and she found her self against the wall, back to the grey paint with stitches. She slid, down her hair following with her. "Great, now I'm really confused."


	15. Chapter 15

"This is all yours, really?" Death Scythe asked standing in Soul's room where they had gathered all the possessions belonging to Maka and Soul that they were going to bring back. They were still in their party clothes and had arms full with bags; more totes were resting on the floor. "Great… Makes my job a whole lot harder."

Death Scythe touched the mirror they had moved into the room and the hall way in his house appeared. He held out a hand and stepped half way through backing up to the edge of the mirror and Maka took his hand and walked through followed by Soul. Death Scythe turned to them, "why don't you two go find rooms here, it's kind of late, alright? I'll get everything else."

"'Kay, Papa." Maka said and began running down the hallway and turned up the stair Soul on her heels. The two turned a corner and saw Nuru coming out of a guest room in a new white dress Maka stopped and dropped her bags in surprise. "Aunt Nuru?"

Nuru turned and saw her. She smiled and walked over to hug Maka. "Maka, I'd recognize you anywhere. You look so much like you mother, which is good because you father..." Nuru stuck out her tongue to end the sentence. She let go and smiled over looking at Soul. "This's your weapon?"

"Soul Eater Evans, I'm a scythe." He said and stuck out a hand.

"Me too. I'm Nuru." She said and shook it fiercely. "So, what are we doing?"

"Going to bed." Maka said and began picking up her bags.

"I'd help, but I just got stitches on my belly." Nuru said kind of upset. She suddenly got happy again. "I know it's been since you were eight, but can I tuck you in anyway?"

Maka smiled. "Sure, just no stories about Papa being stupid, I actually think I want to fall asleep."

"Okay." She said and walked down the hall to open up the door to Maka's old room. Nuru walked in and moved the air with her hand, "Eh, stale air." She said and walked over to open the window, "that better. Well…" She turned around to see that Maka was sitting on her old bed already and had taken off the heels. She was then surprised that Soul had also come into the room and was sitting next to her. "Am I tucking you in too?"

"I guess. I kind of want to stay near Maka after what happened." Soul muttered.

"Shoes off." Nuru said and Soul quickly obeyed. Nuru without hesitation shoved them both into bed. She leaned over and moved the covers up and kissed Maka on the forehead. "I'll be here when you wake up, alright. And remember…"

"If I feel the need to get up and find someone to protect me your right across the hall. I remember." Maka said and Nuru patted her on the head and did the same for Soul.

"No funny business, and if Spirit-kun asks, I didn't authorize this." Nuru waved and hopped out of the room closing the door quietly behind her.

"Is she really your aunt?" Soul asked as Maka turned into him and laid her head near his chest.

"No, she found out she was a scythe when she was little and was taken from her village in Ethiopia, she didn't have anyone to live with so Papa and Stein took her in. She stayed until she graduated when I was eight. She's really cool." Maka said and yawned.

Soul placed an arm around her and they feel silently asleep with the wind blowing over them.

________________________________________________________

Stein was not a socialite, during Vivian's small speech thanking everyone for the warm welcome back to her hometown, he had hid himself on the balcony against the far wall staring at a chubby man in a navy suit who was obviously balding. Thanks to the recent events of Death Scythe taking Stein drinking every Friday, the wine was barely affecting him at all, and he could still see well enough even without his glasses.

Vivian finished and the room went back to normal. Stein went up to the balcony, Vivian spotted him, and Norman had spotted her. Stein without using any manner what so ever just leapt over the railing and smoothly landed on the floor beneath him, his glass of wine still intact.

He moved quickly next to Vivian and offered her his arm again. She took it quickly and the two knew what they were doing, they both turned to Norman and smiled. Norman stopped dead in his tracts and he quickly smiled. "Vivian, hello again. And Stein…"

"Hi Norman, fancy seeing you here." Stein said as if he wasn't expecting it. "I see the scars all healed from your fall into… where was it again?"

"The Grand Canyon." The candidate said through his clenched teeth.

"Ah right, that was some senior trip, huh? Don't you agree Viv?" Stein asked turning to her.

"Oh I loved it, we should go again sometime. Maybe when we have a class reunion we could take the entire class and have a picnic?" She suggested and Norman lost his smile. "What? It's so pretty there."

"So Norman, you running for mayor, it's going to be nice for you when Death the Kid concedes. You'll love your victory I guess, voting for yourself." Stein said. Norman temporarily clenched and knew he had hit a cord.

"How's the dissecting going?" Norman snapped quickly.

"Great actually. I'm not dissecting much anymore, I'm a primary teacher at Shibusen now." Stein said. "It's really great teaching kids… Oh, you never like kids much did you?"

"So, what do you teach, chemistry, biology?" Norman asked.

"I teach students." Stein answered quickly. Vivian broke out laughing and raised a free hand to her mouth. Stein turned his head quickly and he and Vivian walked a few feet away and began laughing out loud as they both turned to look at him. They turned back and began laughing harder. "I didn't know you didn't like him."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Franken." She said and moved her hand down his arm and interwove her fingers with his. "Come and meet some of my friends, one of them is a mortician."

Norman watched as they moved away and his glass shattered as he accidentally let a bit of his soul wavelength out. "You're dead…."


	16. Chapter 16

Vivian Leandros was staying at Death's Arms, the most expensive hotel in town. She was saying how her manager had paid for it since she really wanted to come home for a visit. Stein did the gentleman thing, although he was uneasy about it, and walked her up to her room and that's all he was prepared to go to. Vivian unlocked the door and opened it a bit and turned to Stein and looked him in the eyes like so few could and smiled. "Would you like to come in for coffee?"

"No, thank you. I've got to get home and do… stuff." He said, which wasn't lying. Stein just didn't say 'I'm going home and passing out to forget about you.' Vivian immediately frowned. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

She smiled again suddenly. "Alright, see you tomorrow." She stepped forward and Stein quickly moved back away avoiding her swiftly. He was getting better at dodging people. Stein turned a corner and literally ran to the elevator and rushed in to hit the skull button for the bottom floor. He stepped forward and hit his head against the door.

"'See you tomorrow,' stupid." He said and slammed his head again. "I don't want to see her tomorrow."

As soon as the doors opened Stein rushed out and checked his watch holding it close to his eyes, it was nearly midnight. He began running through the streets, he didn't feel safe anymore, he was alone at midnight with no one else on the streets and he had a five minute run with no places to hide. He paced himself by the sound of his dress shoes hitting the pavement and didn't slow down until he saw the graveyard in front of his house. He stopped and rested for a second, his hand on a misplaced street lamp.

There were three weak sounding shots, one right after another and Stein collapsed to his knees and he heard a click behind him. He turned his head but in the darkness he couldn't see anything but a blurred sheen from the barrel of an old gun.

"Stein!" Marie had picked the right time to run out on to the street. The sheen disappeared and there were soft footsteps away from him and the loud clicks of Marie's heels heading towards him. Marie knelt down and looked at him. "Are you alright?"

"There was a gunman. I need to get inside and remove the bullets." Stein said and tried to stand up on his own and fell back down until Marie climbed under one of his arms and lifted him up as best as she could and helped him walk inside. Stein collapsed onto a chair, sitting on it backwards. "Go to the lab and get a scalpel and tweezers."

"Okay." Marie said and sniffled a bit and ran back to the lab.

'She's crying.' Stein noticed and then looked at the table to see the crumpled piece of paper and lifted it up to read his own notes on her. He swore, for a second his heart stopped but then he heard her heels and he quickly put the note back upside down and began removing his jacket.

"How are you going to remove the bullets from your back?" Marie asked setting the instruments down in front of him.

"You're going to. It's not that hard, grab with the tweezers, cut with the scalpel." Stein said and tossed his jacket aside and then began undoing his shirt, the red hadn't helped any, the back was turning maroon from his blood loss.

"But… won't it hurt?" Marie asked and sniffled again.

"It's okay, I'm used to it." Stein removed the shirt and leaned over the chair's back and looked over at the crumpled piece of paper. He lifted the tweezers to her. "Here."

Marie grabbed them and looked at the three wounds spread across his back, two on the right shoulder and one below them on the opposite side. Marie carefully touched her hand down to the top one and looked for the bullet and stuck the tweezers into the small hole and pulled out a whole bullet. She set it down on the table and moved to the next one doing the same thing.

Marie got to the final bullet wound and couldn't find the bullet and began to panic. "I don't see it." Stein's reflexes were quick and presented the scalpel before she finished her sentence. "Are you sure?"

"Just get it out or it'll heal with the bullet in there." Marie took the scalpel and put it to his skin. She inhaled and made a small cut. Stein tensed a bit and she stopped and closed her eyes for a second and started again until she opened it wide enough she found the metal ammunition and was able to pull it out.

"Do you have gauze?"Marie asked her voice defiantly shaky.

"In the lab." Marie set the scalpel and tweezers down, both covered in blood along with Marie's fingers. She disappeared for a minute and came back with white bandages and white tape. Marie did this without worry, now she was only dressing a wound. She finished and also set the tape and spare gauze down to seat herself in the chair next to him and breakdown crying.

"Marie." Stein said softly and put his hand on her head. "What's wrong? It's just a few bullets."

"Someone's trying to kill you and you act like it's nothing!" Marie cried and lifted her head to use her wrist to wipe away some of the tears. "You'll end up like Joe! He thought like that too!"

"I have a Politian who's after me, he can't even figure out that old weapons suck at killing people. I think I'm safe unless he gets an AK-47." Stein said trying to explain his theory. Marie got up, thoroughly pissed, and smacked Stein across the face walking off to her room and slammed the door. Stein sighed, his back was stinging worse than it ever had but he got up anyway and walked down the hall and grabbed the handle and walked into Marie's room and looked at her as she huddled up on the bed and cried.

"It's my room, get out!" She said not even looking at him.

"No." He said and walked over and sat down on the bed next to her and turned towards her, crossing his legs and waited for her to look up or do something. "Technically it's my room."

Marie stood up off the bed and began to walk away when Stein used his arm to catch her waist and pull her back. "Let go."

"Sit down Marie. I know your upset, but I was the one who was shot." He said pointing out the fact. She just stood there for a minute or so until Stein got bored and grabbed her setting her on his lap facing away from him. "Different people value things differently. I'm sorry I don't view my life as having much value, but that doesn't mean you need to throw a tantrum."

"But someone tried to kill you…" She said and broke down crying again losing her anger. Stein put his arms around her and held her. Marie quickly pushed his arms off. "Stop it, you're confusing me."

"I didn't mean to confuse you, though, I don't really get it." Stein said and scratched his head. Marie turned and looked at him and he stared at her for a second before she leaned in and caught him by the lips. Marie's hand smoothed over his shoulder and Stein pulled her in. There was a loud crash as the door broke open.


	17. Chapter 17

**I just wanted to adress something - I do read the manga, however, I am not updating the story to the current plot. I wrote this during the Baba-something castle chapters and for the sake of a funny joke at the end, I will not change it. Just letting you know - Aki**

Kami was sitting reading through a romance novel she found amongst the gun manuals and the history books Yumi had. She had thought it was rather boring until she was half way through and the first scene happened and while she was reading she kept remembering old love scenes between herself and her husband and the words and images intertwined until she had to put the book down ending both of them.

Kami thought it was awkward enough that Spirit was actually over talking with her, he didn't make a move at all, apologize, or even refer to them as a couple. His focus had been Maka and that he thought she should get a cell phone of her own but that was up to her. Spirit didn't technically have it in his rights since who Maka could be around was up to her and he thought a phone counted towards that. He didn't want to do anything against Kami because he didn't want Maka to have to struggle through another argument.

She rolled her well cut nails over the skin on her fore arm and sighed. 'Spirit's invading my head.' She looked down; she had accidentally nicked herself on the arms with two of her nails. She just slapped the tips of her fingers over the tiny cuts and decided to wait, they weren't that big.

Sensing something off she stopped, her breathing became heavy and labored and she quickly moved to the wall and grabbed one of the guns Yumi kept and made sure it was loaded. Kami wasn't one to be paranoid, but she felt bad, like something in the pit of her stomach. She looked towards the door and sensed a soul there. 'Dark, hate-filled, greedy, lustful.' She cocked the gun and waited, the soul didn't move.

Kami moved a hand over to the wall and picked up the phone and dialed quickly remembering her former home number. 'Dammit, why'd I dial Spirit's number?' The phone quickly picked up and a gruff "enh yea?" came over the phone.

"It's Kami, I think I have a problem over here. There's a possible Kishin soul outside the door and it's not moving." She said quietly and kept a steady watch of the door. "Can you hop through a mirror really quick, I don't know if loading a clip into it will kill it?"

"Uh, I'm on my way." Death Scythe said and the phone hung up. Kami quickly put it back but accidentally hung it up too loudly. She saw the soul flux and change, there was a kill in it now. The door burst opened and the man from two days ago paraded in, his face now deformed and replaced with random metal bits.

Kami fire relentlessly into him until she realized the gun had run out. He rushed her and Kami quickly dropped to the ground and pressed her barefoot into his stomach sending him up and over crashing into the windows. The man fell, his neck cracked but he got right back up. Kami leapt to her feet only to dodge a hit. She felt a hand on her back. She turned to see Spirit, half drowsed in his boxers and hair sticking everywhere. "That that guy from that one place?"

He yawned and Kami nodded. He helped her up and changed into a scythe in her hands. Kami wasted no time swinging the weapon and cutting the creature in half. The body disappeared and a red egg appeared floating. Kami held him out for him to change back and he did quickly. Spirit grasped the egg and quickly swallowed it. He looked at her, "Come on, we're grabbing Maka and Soul and Nuru."

"Nuru? She came home?" Kami asked happily not questioning him.

"We're going to Stein's. I think he was right. You and Maka are going to be targeted." He said. "Grab some clothes."

Kami stopped and crossed her arms. "Are you telling me…"

"I have Death Scythe authority and I believe there're more people that may be coming. Get your shit Kami!" He roared and stopped Kami staring up at him. He wanted to apologize but she rushed away and came back with a small bag. He looked at her and stopped. "I'm sorry…"

"Let's go." She said and touched his arm and pointed to the mirror on the wall.

Death Scythe reached and hand through and slowly pulled Kami along with her. They ended up in Death Scythe's darkened bedroom where he quickly flipped on the switch and got his pants on. "Maka and Soul are in her bedroom, would you mind go getting them? I'll get Nuru up."

"Okay." She said and rushed out of the room and down the hall to the door and opened it and flipped on the light rushing over to the bed. Both woke up to the light shining on them and looked at her. "Up you two, get some clothes packed."

"Mom?" Maka asked. She sat up pulling away from Soul and looked at her checking the clock. "It's nearly midnight, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure, ask your father." She said and grabbed a bag off the floor as they quickly slipped their shoes on. "Are both your clothes in here?"

"Yeah." Soul said looking at the bag. He got up and helped Maka up. Kami tossed him the bag and he caught it. She quickly left the room and Soul and Maka following close behind. Spirit walked out of a side room in his normal garb with Nuru behind him growling. "Yo, Death Scythe, what's going on?"

"Stein can explain that. It's his theory." Death Scythe said. "All you need to know is that Stein and I were very, very stupid when we were younger."

"It's true." Nuru commented looking over at him. "But they were always good people, just… boys." That was the last word, as soon as they hit outside everything was quiet, not a noise anywhere.

They walked for at least twenty minutes until they found themselves at the graveyard. Death Scythe walked up to the door and threw it open. He stepped in and looked down on the table to see the bloody instruments on the table. "Stein!"

A few seconds later Stein walked out of Marie's room and looked at his former partner and all those gathered behind him. "What happened, Sempai?"

"Kami was attacked in Yumi's apartment. I think the guys been stalking her out for a few days." Death Scythe looked at him. "What's with the blood?"

Stein turned around and showed them his back. "I was shot three times, just about ten minutes ago. I think it was set up by someone at the party."

Death Scythe looked at him while Marie wandered out of the same room rubbing away her tears. "Vivian took him to a party."

"Norman was there." Stein said quickly. "Let's just say we pissed him off quickly." He looked over them. "Well get inside and find rooms, there's plenty up the stairs." They all walked by except for Nuru who sat on the table and picked up the bloody instruments. "Hey baby sis."

"Never clean off your instrument… Men." She said and quickly began washing them to set them in a dish strainer. "Well, I'm going to go pass out. By the way, I need a new miester."

"I'm taken, sorry." Stein said and Nuru hugged him, messed up his hair and began upstairs. Stein laughed and felt something warm on his back. "Am I bleeding again?"

"I got it." Marie quickly removed the blood soaked gauze and began replacing it with fresh, white ones. She finished and traced a hand on him until they turned and looked at each other. "Well, good night."

She smiled, tear stains still on her face, and walked away into her room and closed the door. Stein grabbed the crumpled piece of paper and looked it over and began walking down the hall. With great pain he shoved it under her door and took off to his room bolting the door behind him.


	18. Chapter 18

"Ah-ah, separate rooms." Kami said quickly looking at Maka and Soul. Death Scythe walked up behind her, "unless you've got something to say."

"I think Nuru should go sleep in the room with you two." Death Scythe said. "If anything happens she can protect you, can't you Nuru?"

"Whatever." She said and walked into the room pushing the two out of the way. Maka went up to both her parents and hugged them goodnight, Soul merely nodded his head at them and the young partners disappeared and closed the door.

"They're kids, they don't know about that yet." Death Scythe said looking at her. "I think if you keep trying to push them apart, it's going to speed up the process. You know, curiosity and all. Just my thoughts." Spirit said softly and yawned. "Anyway, now Nuru can watch them both."

Kami looked down at the floor and looked back up at him and pierced her lips. "Spirit." He turned to her. "Would you stay with me in the same room tonight? I just… and that guy…"

Spirit put a hand on her back. "It'll make you feel safer, you mean? I don't mind at all. Come on." He said and opened a room and looked inside and flipped the switch on. Spirit spent a few seconds and checked the door for a lock and then checked the windows too. "I think it's Stein proof."

"Still have nightmares?" She asked and walked over to the twin bed in the center of the room and lifted up the blanket that was on it and saw that it was spotless. Kami sat down on the edge and rubbed her feet. "I can't believe you forgave Stein for all those surgeries."

"He couldn't help it." Death Scythe said and pulled off his jacket and tossed it in a corner followed by his shoes. "It's his thing. Everybody's got to have a thing."

"Hm." Was all Kami replied. She lifted the blanket and slid in and laid her head on half the pillow facing out. Death Scythe got in on the opposite side and lay facing her, he knew she wouldn't easily go to sleep.

Death Scythe nudged her gently. She turned around to see his arm open and beckoning her towards him. She sighed and moved over cuddling right next to her ex-husband. Death Scythe wrapped an arm tightly around her and felt happier then he had for a long while. Normally he would say something that would drive her off, so tonight he simply said. "'Night Kami."

"Hey Spirit." He looked down at her and she didn't moved so he just saw the top of her head. "I want to talk with you in the morning."

"Alright." The scythe said and set his chin on top of her hair and began to slowly drift off. Death Scythe was almost asleep when he felt Kami move; she turned a bit and threw her arm over him.

There was a knock at the door, Stein didn't want to move but he did. He got up to of his bed, grabbed the scalpel he had brought in with him and unbolted the door. He opened the door letting the chains he had put up stay chained. He saw though some light coming from the computers and found the soft outline of Marie's face. "Can I talk to you?"

Stein paused for a minute then shut the door and unlocked all the chains. He reopened the door and flipped on his light switch. He turned around, raised his good arm and rubbed his head as he walked in and sat on his bed to look at her. Marie took two steps in in her night gown and leaned against the opposite wall.

"About earlier and the paper." She said and held out the crumpled piece. "Is it true? Or is it your need to dissect something?"

"It's true." Stein said quietly and turned away looking at the walls. He sniffed the air smelling her perfume and turned towards her feet instead of looking at her face. "I don't know what you want me to say here."

"What do you want to say?" She asked and folded her arms in and looked at him.

Stein's eye finally lifted his eyes and observed her for a second. "You're shivering; you should get something warmer on." Marie suddenly looked down, Stein though he said something wrong. He picked up the sewn-together cloth he used as a blanket and walked over draping it around her.

"How's your back feeling?" She asked searching for a topic.

"Like it was shot." He said, laughed and then stopped. "It's not funny to you, sorry."

"If you like me…" Marie said quietly, "why'd you go with Vivian?"

"She said 'Norman,' I didn't go with her, I wanted to go and let him know I still hated him. Obviously, the message got through." He said and looked at her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me you didn't want me to go?"

"You already said yes to her. Plus, you don't go and change your mind right in front of a girl, it's rude." Marie said. "Trust me I know. I've been dumped enough in front of other women."

"Well…" Stein said trying to find a way to make her feel better. "I really don't know any other women."

"It's because you're here all day everyday." Marie said and slid her hand down his arm. She stopped for a minute and looked at him. "Do you want me to go back to Australia?" Stein stopped and watched her for a second. "If you want me to stay here I will, but I want to know if you want me to."

"I want… you to do whatever feels right to you." He said and Marie dropped his arm. She began out the door and he smiled. "I'd love it if you would stay, but I'm not going to make that choice for you. Personally, I think I'm a bad person, I wouldn't stay for me. However, that doesn't mean I won't try to be a good person. I just don't want to tell you something and have it hurt you."

Marie pivoted in place and took two large steps and found herself leaning against his chest; Stein wrapped an arm around and leaned his head down on hers. "I want to stay then."


	19. Chapter 19

"Aunt Nuru." Maka said leaning off the bed and shaking her shoulder slowly. Nuru just turned over, shooed her off and fell back asleep half way under the bed. Maka sighed. "I don't think she'll be waking up anytime soon."

"We'll just go by ourselves then." Soul said and grabbed a shirt from the bag and began to walk out. "I'll change in the hall, see you out there."

"Right." Maka got up off the bed walking over Nuru as the door quietly latched shut. Soul simply stripped off the button up dress shirt and tossed on a tee shirt and called it finished by draping the dirty shirt over his shoulder and leaning calmly against he wall. It took a minute or two and Maka came out in a sun dress. "Let's go."

Soul nodded and followed her quietly down the stairs and out the front door. The sun was barely up, still drooling from its sleep. The two made their way across the town, without a word and a bit on edge, to their apartment. As they walked down the hall towards the door Soul stopped both of them and pointed, the door had been ripped open.

Maka grabbed the changing scythe and proceeded to slowly walk over, kick the door open and point Soul inside. It was empty, the apartment was trashed and their stuff was all broken. "I just cleaned this place up a week ago."

"I don't think we should be here, we should get back to Stein's." Soul said nervously and they both pointed their attention to some moving objects coming from Soul's room. "Be careful."

Maka nodded and crept over, the noises continued coming from the half opened door. Maka repeated her kick the door open and point the weapon maneuver to see a highly unwelcome sight. There on Soul's bed, writing in all his books was Jennifer. Maka growled. "You have a death wish don't you?"

"I have come for Soul. He doesn't love you, he's pretending." She said, "I know he is. Why else would he be with such a common piece of shit like you?"

Soul changed, dropped from his miester's hands and punched the girl square in the face. Soul didn't waste time grabbing Maka's hand and dragging her away from the screaming girl. He picked up the phone and dialed the police. "Yeah, hi. This is Soul Eater Evans, I have an intruder."

Soul continued the conversation for a few more minutes explaining what she had done and then hung up the phone. "The police are coming."

"She hasn't stopped screaming yet." Maka noted and looked in the room to see the girl wasn't holding her nose anymore but had her hands on her face, bawling. "What's she doing?"

"She warped in the mind. I have no idea." Maka and Soul stayed in the kitchen until the police showed up eating whatever they found at hand. The police walked in to see the mess and Soul quickly addressed them and pointed them towards Jennifer. "She broke in and trashed the place, we were at Death Scythe's last night, so we don't know exactly how long she's been here."

"We'll take her." The officer said looking at her. They stepped over the messed and grabbed her by each arm and began pulling her out of the room. She stopped and looked at Soul. "Tell them, tell them that you didn't mean any of it."

"Get out of my life." Soul said quickly. "I don't know how many more times I have to tell you I don't love you, so I'm going to tell you this." He said just as she was at the door. "I hate you."

She screamed and was dragged from the apartment quickly and obviously in mental distress. Maka stepped foreword. "There's something really wrong with her."

"I think we should tell your dad about her. Isn't it weird that she showed up here?" Soul said turning towards her, "how could she have known where we lived? No one would have ever told her."

"You think this has something to do with Mama getting attacked and Stein-sensei being shot?" Maka asked and Soul shrugged. "Let's go ask."

"Alright." Soul said and changed into a scythe. Maka knew he had only meant to turn into a scythe so she could use him as a weapon but she didn't like the thought of them being targets anyway. They made it to Stein's house in record time being that Maka ran the entire way and used Soul as a pole vault where needed.

Soul changed back and put his fingers to his lips and let off a loud, sharp whistle that was sure to wake everyone up. Needless to say Kami and death Scythe were the first ones there followed by Nuru. "What's going on?"

"We'd like to know that too." Maka snapped sharply. "A crazy psychopathic ditz destroyed our apartment last night. She shouldn't have been able to get over here; we left her getting beaten up by Blair near Soul's house."

"I told you, Sempai." Stein said walking out of his room and looking at all of them. "It's a vendetta, I told you he'd go after Kami and Maka."

Death Scythe stopped and gulped. "So… what do we do? We don't really have any proof yet, and we can't just go and kill him and blame it on someone else."

"Kill?" Kami said and grabbed his arm and looked at her ex. "Exactly who is doing this and why is my daughter being targeted?"

"It's because back in school, Stein and Death Scythe picked on Norman Hartwell. Stein even kicked him into the Grand Cayon remember, it made state headlines as a terrible accident and a miracle of survival." Marie said wandering up behind Stein and putting a hand on his arm. "Norman's found his chance to get back at them. By running as mayor, he can slowly eliminate them and every one like them."

Death Scythe thought for a minute and picked up a finger and pointed at Stein and then Maire and then back to Stein and then back to Marie. Stein walked past him whispering, "Don't think too hard sempai, you might hurt yourself."


	20. Chapter 20

"I've scanned the papers, kept tract of everything and gotten some information from you." Stein said and turned to Kami. "The Kishin egg that was sent after you, he was supposedly taken three months ago by Norman and a weapon. The weapon in the report doesn't exist anymore, he's still registered for some reason, but he died several months ago during the witch uprising." Stein said and held out a picture of the weapon. "He was your scythe Kami."

"Seth?" She said and draped a hand over her mouth and looked at the picture. "That's disgusting."

"Jennifer Winston." Stein said and pulled out another photo and set it down in front of Kami and Death Scythe. "She's had a crush on Soul since she was born basically. She got involved when Uncle Norman told her that your daughter and her weapon were coming home. He was lucky there. Maka told me she tired to shoot her with an old pistol last night before she called you. Could be a family link."

"It does seem connected." Kami said and looked at him, "but if he's really trying to get us, why doesn't he just do it?"

"Norman's a perfectionist, he can't seem imperfect and kill someone himself. Plus, he couldn't be mayor then. The mayor cannot have a felony on record." Stein said and turned to Marie who was gazing out the window.

He nudged her slightly with her arm. Marie sighed. "Vivian's coming. Go get a shirt on." She said still somewhere out in space. Stein quickly moved the chair back as Marie gathered the papers and shoved them in a folder.

"I thought…" Death Scythe whispered pointing to Stein as he addressed Marie.

"We are. He's going to use her as a shield to protect me. He says Norman won't come after me if he's being seen with her." She whispered back and put both her arms over the folder. Looking up she smiled. "Hey, Viv!"

Vivian took that as an invitation and walked in in what barely counted as clothes. She was obviously trying to get attention. Kami's eyes went directly to Death Scythe, he wasn't looking at her but watching anything else he could find distracting and he noticed Kami's gaze. "Hm?"

"Nothing." She smiled and slipped a hand on his knee. Stein came out in his normal pants and shirt minus lab coat and glasses. He smiled at her, "Hi Viv. What's up?"

"Nothing, just wondering if you'd like to go get brunch with me, if you're not too busy?" She said smiling at Kami and Death Scythe. "I can come back another time."

"No it's fine. I'll be back later." Stein said and left with the supermodel, Marie watched until they were gone out of sight and sighed.

"Tell him if you're not happy with it." Kami said quickly. "You don't have to put up with it."

"You can do a lot better then Stein, Marie." Death Scythe added quietly. "Don't know what you see in him."

"There's something there, I'm not sure what, but there is something, and Vivian's gone soon anyway, she's only here for a week." Marie said and stood up with the folder. "I'm going to go do some research, excuse me." She said distantly and walked away from the table.

They watched her go and Kami squeezed her hand on Death Scythe legs causing him to turn to her. "Poor girl."

"Stein better get his head right pretty quickly or I'll knock him out. It's Marie, she's fragile. He knows better." Death Scythe said a little upset and without thinking took Kami's hand and shook his head. He looked down suddenly and tore his hand away. "Sorry."

Kami quickly grabbed it back and interlocked her fingers and smiled at him. "It's alright." She moved closer to him in her chair and leaned in. "I've been thinking."

Spirit was quiet and attentive except for the one thought of 'Wow, Marie's lessons did work' and a single 'YES!' He looked at her and blinked.

"Maybe I was a little hasty in the divorce. What I mean to say is that maybe we should get back together. I do miss you." Kami gave a special grin.

Death Scythe laid a hand on her face and pulled her in quickly and intently, their lips locking in a tense battle. They heard footsteps coming from the back and they pulled back far enough to talk. "Upstairs?"

"Upstairs." Kami said and grabbed his hands and dragged him to the stairs and pulled him up to the landing. "Where's our room?"

"This one." He said and opened a door and pulled her inside. He shut the door with one foot and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her as hard as he could. Death Scythe felt two hands grab his jacket and begin to remove it.

"I win!" Maka said setting her hand down on the lab table. "We should have never learned how to play poker, especially since you're that bad at it."

"Shut up." Soul smiled and punched her lightly in the arm.

"Well, I'm bored of this game." Nuru said tossing in her cards revealing a 2,4,8 and two jacks of different sets. Suddenly there was a loud thump from upstairs and the three looked at the ceiling until they heard it again. "You two… go play in the graveyard, would you?"

"Okay…?" Maka said and took Soul's hand and followed him outside. Nuru jumped on the table and pounded. "You two are too noisy!" She raised a leg and a white scythe blade went through. "Next time I'm hitting one of you!"

She got the response of a black blade through the floor followed by some huge laughs. "I'm going to tell Stein you're putting holes in the floor!" They stopped for a second and continued laughing.


	21. Chapter 21

Soul held Maka's hand outside and watched her as she knelt down by a grave that had the name well worn off and looked down at a single Daisy that was sprawling up. "Do you think the dead would mind if I took the flower?"

"I think they'd be upset if you didn't. They have no use for it." Soul said and smiled at her as she picked it up to look at it closely. "It's completely unharmed."

"That's good. Here." Soul said taking the flower from Maka and sticking it in the top of her left pigtail. "Now _it_ looks prettier."

Maka took a second for comprehension and blushed. She really didn't have a response to it, which was fine for Soul he just kept holding her hand and smiling. Soul moved and sat down against the tombstone and leaned freely back against it. Maka moved to sit down next to him and leaned her shoulder on him. "I want to home."

"You really want to go and do all that cleaning?" Soul asked her looking down at her face. "We'll have to pick up all the papers and sort through them, the trash is everywhere, a lot of the furniture including the couch is DOA. I kind of want to hire a cleaning crew."

"I now, but it's still home." She said and sighed into the sky above them.

"You know what we need?" Soul asked her. Maka turned to him and stared at him. "We need another vacation since going to my house was a wreck."

There was the sudden sound of a car on the street. Normally two children would look past this, but Stein was the only one who lived way out here in the middle of nowhere. The racket was enough to make Maka lift her head off her boyfriend and stretched to see a shimmering white wagon stopping. "Hey Soul... I think something's wrong."

"Wrong?" Soul dropped her hand and turned to look over the headstone as well. The wagon stopped and the back doors opened but no one came out. "I think…" Soul made a grunting noise as he fell over to the ground a little blood showing through his hair.

Above him stood a man in a twenty-styled suit glaring down at her with a bloodied lead pipe in hand. "Hiya, girly. Let's go for a ride, eh?"

"NURU!" Maka screamed the man grabbed her and hit her on the head too, she was knocked out cold as the man dragged her by the collar over to the truck. Nuru came flying out of the house, her one leg still a scythe blade and quickly proceeded to cut the man in half with a ballerina's grace. She held a little moue on her face and grabbed Maka up as the wagon began to speed away.

Death Scythe was the one to come out of the house to see his daughter and her weapon unconscious and his little sister chasing down a speeding car… and _winning_. Nuru ran as quickly as she could after it and was slowly gaining on the vehicle, she had after all be the quickest long distance runner Shibusen had ever seen up until Black Star. Nuru in two long strides hooked the scythe blade onto the truck and stepped in to see the driver and another man in the front.

Raising the white blade she began to swing but stopped by the black blade coming through the front taking both of them out before she could. Her leg returned to normal and she stomped in her heels. "No fair, Spirit! I had them!"

"I told you, you always dramatize too much." He said and the blade disappeared as the two people vanished leaving the souls behind. She saw her big brother wasn't really prepared for public. Spirit's hair was everywhere and he had completely forgotten a shirt and when he turned around you could see the nail marks on his back.

"Should have put a shirt on." She said angrily. She reached through and grabbed both the red Kishin eggs left over and swallowed them quickly. She jumped out and waited as he walked around running his hand through his hair. "And you should probably remind Kami to clean your skin out from under her nails."

"Shut up." He said and pushed her to the side with one arm. Nuru quickly shoved him back with both hands. "You're just jealous because you don't have a boyfriend."

"Whatever." She said holding a hand up. "You're just jealous because you weren't born a girl."

Kami slipped a dress on and headed down as soon as she could. Running outside she found Soul on the ground. She checked his pulse quickly and sat him up against the head stone to wander over Maka who was just unconscious.

Lifting her slightly Kami dragged her daughter back and set her down next to Soul waiting for someone, preferably Spirit, to help get them inside. She looked through the streets and watched carefully for something to happen, a reason for her to go off on someone. She felt a hand touch her back, turning Kami saw Marie kneel down with stein's blanket over her shoulders. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure, I found them unconscious. Spirit and Nuru took off somewhere." She said and Marie saw the blood running down Soul's face. Marie shoved her out of the way and began pulling apart the hair to examine the wound. "Is it bad?"

"Well, I'm not a MA," She said and pressed her hand down on the wound. "But the skull doesn't appear to be fractured. I think it'd just heal naturally."

"Everything okay?" Spirit said running up to them with Nuru to his direct right.

"Soul's head's bleeding, Marie thinks it will be fine. They're both just unconscious." Kami said and backed up. "Can you guys help me get them inside?"

Death Scythe bent over and effortlessly picked up Maka and walked her inside. The three women picked up Soul and took him inside right behind Death Scythe. "We can put them in my room; it's the first door on the right."

Death Scythe adjusted his arms and opened the door to walk in, "hey, how come you get the nice room?"

"Stein did it while I was gone." Marie led them in with Soul and set him on the bed. Marie walked over to the closet and grabbed an extra pillow and set it down at the opposite end and Death Scythe lay his daughter down carefully. "Who did this?"

"I'm guessing Norman. Stein was right in kicking him into the Grand Cayon. I say we get him and kick him in again." Death Scythe said angrily. "Attack my daughter…"

"Go put a shirt on Spirit. Nuru, Marie, go find Stein and bring him back. From now on, no one goes out alone, understand?" Kami said quickly in a dark tone. The three nodded and left the room. Kami waited until they left and she dropped to the ground next to the bed and petted Maka on the head, "my poor baby… We'll find a way to get that nasty man."


	22. Chapter 22

Death Scythe had put on his shirt and descended the stairs quietly. As he turned about to head to his daughter the door bell went off, a somber melody, it was just like Stein. Death Scythe turned and headed the opposite way towards the door and opened it to see a shortly man with a lot of bulge on him. Death Scythe grimaced. "Stein's not here, he's out with Vivian."

"Really, that's a shame." Cooed Norman Hartwell. "I was just wondering if he's seen this morning's paper."

"Probably not since he just left the house like an hour ago. He's downtown somewhere, just follow the line of guys staring at Vivian." He said and moved to close the door but was stopped by a hand. "You better move that damn hand before I cut it off."

"Still so bitter after all these years? What did I ever do to you Death Scythe?" He asked in a preacher-like way. Norman moved his hand back and looked at him, "listen, I just wanted to see what he was up to."

"Vivian, they're spending every waking moment together. You know, Leandros, supermodel extraordinaire, the girl you had a crush on." Norman's face twisted to Death Scythe's delight. "I don't know what you want, but if you trespass again, I'm going to kill you. Why don't you go preach to all the mothers who are worried their daughters might fall prey to puberty?"

"That's not a smart thing to say Death Scythe."

"Neither is this. I will find someway to annihilate you, I'm not just going to kill you, I'm going to ruin you. My daughters unconscious because cronies that you sent attacked her. Just wait… It's going to be beautiful." He said and smiled slamming the door shut and turning around to see Kami.

"Change." She said quietly and held out her hand. Death Scythe took her hand and closed it around hers shaking his head. "Change Spirit."

"No, not now." He said and moved his hands to her shoulders as she began crying in frustration and hatred. Death Scythe pulled her in and cradled her head against his chest. "Death is too good for him."

Stein was horribly aware as a miester of the people surrounding them. Vivian as an overly flirtatious blood-red long sword was not. She hadn't noticed that they were surrounded by witches and a werewolf that kept appearing in ridiculous costumes, that she should have noted, but she didn't. Vivian kept her arm latched around Stein's and closed her eyes whenever she laughed, and that was almost constantly. Stein was just agreeing or disagreeing as simplistically as he could without causing her to having a fit.

There was this nagging thought going through his head wondering if the witches all thought this was as unpleasant as he thought it was. He didn't mind Vivian's company, but he'd much prefer to be with Marie. Marie had spent the night in his bed which she was against to, she told him to sleep in the bed with her. Instead of another word he rolled in his chair, sat in it backwards and fell asleep watching her sleep. He also preferred to sleep that way since he was shot in the back three times and it hurt like shock therapy to his body.

He kept his eyes glued to a copy of the morning paper he had bought; he had a hard time reading without his glasses, but he could make do. Stein not only thought the article of Norman Hartwell was highly entertaining, he actually began feeling like he should frame this article. The featured picture was that of Norman, age 14 at the time, with a toilet seat around his neck due to the fact he had an 'incident' with two bullies in the bathroom. Really Stein was only trying to get him to shut up and Death Scythe suggested the toilet. It had worked out lovely except for the three hour scolding from Yumi, Shinigami just said not to do it again and sent them home early for the day. They spent it playing with Nuru who had gotten out of her class by leaping from a window and running home like she normally did.

"Hey Stein?" She got a simple 'hm?' back from him. "Let's go get lunch."

"Sure." He said and skillfully folded the newspaper up tucking it securely under his arm. "Where'd you have in mind?"

He knew it didn't matter, Vivian would go to the closest most abandoned place she could find. She walked down the block with him looking into the different places until she saw a nearly abandoned Mexican restaurant. "Let's go here."

Stein led her in and they sat down at a table for a second before a short looking woman and a giant man came in. They were peculiar but didn't make Stein turn like Vivian did, he knew who they were from a glance. Eruka Frog and Free of the Immortal Clan.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom, order something for me if the waiter comes." Vivian said and got up to walk past the odd couple and went into the women's room.

Stein turned his head and smiled at them. "Where is she?"

"Outside, the alley." Eruka said quietly.

"You don't like her do you, that supermodel chick. She's too yappy for me." Free said and turned to Eruka, "That's the problem with supermodels."

Stein shifted his head and put his chin to rest on his palm as he looked out the window towards the alley. He waved slightly with his open hand. Two glowing yellow eyes appeared near the ground then rose as Medusa took her normal shape and looked at him. She stepped foreword into the light keeping her face as human as possible. She nodded and Stein nodded back and turned to her spies. "Tell her the next time she sends you guys out to spy on me, just to have me call her, we can double date so I'm not the only one suffering."

Both Eruka and Free laughed.


	23. Chapter 23

Marie and Nuru had no trouble tracking the mad doctor and the supermodel. She had caught every man's eye on the way to where ever she was going, and then the men would be upset about her hanging on to him. Marie took offense to this every time and nearly beat one guy to mush if Nuru hadn't dragged her along.

It wasn't long until the two weapons found them in a Mexican restaurant and invaded with vehement force. Marie rushed to the table and caused the two too look up. "There's trouble at home, we have to go now."

Stein immediately stood up causing the two spies to glare at him and start listening better. Vivian looked at her. "Trouble? Can I help?"

"It's nothing to do with you; actually it's best if you stay out of it." Nuru said quickly. She grabbed Stein and dragged him away from the model speaking quickly in a hushed tone about the attempted abduction, Marie following quietly behind. She noticed a presence behind her and turned around to see Vivian get up.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked with completely sincerity. Marie looked at her for a second until she spoke again, "or is this a closed matter?"

"She can come." Stein said looking over Marie. He walked over and took Marie's hand. "But first off, I don't like you like that; I've been using you as shield to keep Marie from Norman. I apologize if I led you to think something."

Vivian lowered her head and looked away for a minute and sighed. "If it's to get Norman, it's alright." She cheered up and looked at the death scythe. "I'll help get that pervert."

"Good. Marie, Nuru, take Vivian to my house, I'll be along in a minute, get everyone in the lab, it's the safest place in the house." He said and Marie let go of his hand and grabbed Vivian's arm and lead her away with Nuru. Stein waited until they were gone and turned to Eruka and Free. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Eruka asked standing up. Free quickly shoved the rest of his wet burrito into his mouth and followed them across the street to an alley where the snake slithered up against the wall turning into a woman.

"Well, we haven't had a face to face talk in what…?" Medusa chimed slowly. "Four weeks?"

"I agreed to not rat you out, and in turn you said you'd help me." Stein said quickly and leaned on the opposite wall. "Norman Hartwell…"

"I know, I know everything." Medusa said, "Mizunes have been invading his house for the past few days. Do you really think I wouldn't notice?" She said and took a few steps foreword, "Free, Eruka, you may go." Her words came across to the two as 'beat it or I'll force you away.'

"Right." They yelled in unison and briskly headed back over to the restaurant to finish their meal.

"I hate it when you do that." Stein said and looked away from her. Medusa took another step foreword and reached to touch him. "I bring your people for a reason."

"Scared to be alone with me? I know it didn't hurt... that much" She said and walked two fingers up his arm and he shrugged away quickly. Medusa took slight offense and changed her attitude to bitter and resentful. "What do you want?"

"I don't want to have anything else happen. Since you've been following me around, do you think you could spread your sources a bit and put in a little extra protection for everyone else? I don't want anyone else hurt because I was an asshole growing up."

"You're still an asshole." She said quickly and sighed to laugh a little. "I know you're having a meeting at your house, I want in." She said and stared at him.

"It's in the lab, there's a small air shaft vent in the back of the house that's never in use, you could slither in there and hear it." Stein keeping away from her began walking away, the stone of the brick building scrapping his arm.

Medusa actually caught his arm and pulled him back some. "If you burn me, I'll kill the hammer weapon." She traced a hand along his face and disappeared down into alley vanishing into the darkness. Stein took a few steps and still felt here there, "is there something else, Medusa?"

"I don't like spying myself, I'd rather come as an ally." She hissed and her two eyes appeared out of the darkness.

"They aren't fond of you," he said and turned to her. "But you are useful. Take off your soul protect and come along then, you still have that treaty with Shinigami."

"That's better." She said and stepped back out and lowered her hood. "I can't wait to see their reactions when you show up with a witch. Especially Marie, I thought she might have been traumatized by your mood the last time people knew we were in the same room."

"She doesn't know what happened, and I will keep it that way, is that understood?" Stein said in a low commanding voice. Medusa smiled as they walked out of the alley together. "Don't say anything suggestive either."

"Me, say something suggestive? Why Franken, I'm surprised, I am a lady." She cooed. "Wouldn't want to let it slip that I had you all night over and over and over…."

His hand caught her throat and he looked at her. "Just… just stop it. Please." She looked up at the face and was surprised.

"No worries, I was only teasing. You really are concerned for her, huh?" Medusa asked slowly removing his hand from her throat. She dropped his hand and grabbed both sides of his face and smiled "Don't worry, I won't ruin it for you today. I do expect repayment."

"What do you want?" Stein asked. Medusa leaned up and kissed him.

"I want another night."


	24. Chapter 24

**Aki: I just thought I would put an update on for the sake of doing it. So, this story has about three more weeks and then no more Soul Eater writings for a while. I know you're all very sad and disheartened, but college is hard. And it's about to get harder which makes me angry... That's my update, have a wonderful life.**

Vivian had never before been in Stein's lab, neither had any of them except Marie who was still as uncomfortable as everyone else about the beakers, lab tables and most of all the corpse on a table that was beginning to rot which filled the lab with their stench. They seated themselves around an empty examination table except for Maka and Soul who were still unconscious. Kami had been very thorough about locking the windows and making sure everything was safe before coming down to the damnable place. Kami sat uncomfortably staring at Marie and Vivian who were having a quite uneasy discussion, Spirit was clung to her arm looking down at the table with unease. Nuru was the only one with a smile on her face; she had it shoved in a comic book she had found in a bookshelf.

Kami nearly choked when she sensed it. "Witch!" She said and jumped up pulling along the changing scythe as they ran towards the front of the house followed by the weapons. As Kami burst out the door she stopped and the weapons gathered behind her. They were surprised to find Stein walking down the street with Medusa at his side, and they were laughing. Spirit quickly changed back and observed as they strolled through the graveyard and looked at them. Stein turned his bolt nervously. "She'll be joining us."

"What stake does a witch have in this?" Marie asked quietly. She turned and look directly at Franken but he turned away.

Medusa laughed, "I don't really think that buffoon who's hunting you guys would like it if he discovered a small coven was living here." She stopped and grinned at Marie and entered the house unescorted.

"Why do we need a witch? Why did you tell her?" Marie asked grabbing his arm. "She's dangerous."

"I didn't tell her, she's been following me around for the past three months, she already knew everything and she's been spying on Norman too. She knows things we don't." Stein said and put his hand on her head. "She's promised to behave or I get to kill her."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Marie said and walked inside with Kami and Death Scythe following. Nuru stood outside and waited, "that witch, something happened between you two, didn't it?"

Stein simply put a finger up to his mouth and made a slight 'shhing' noise and walked in shoving his hands in his pockets. Nuru followed him while shaking her head to shut the door and bolt it several. They all arranged themselves away from Medusa except for Stein and the table went quiet until Medusa pulled out a small black folder. "It's Norman's final plans. What he plans to do if he wins, it's exceptionally cruel."

She shoved it foreword and opened it. "It's everything from dress codes, to house codes, to persecutions and sanity tests for students attending Shibusen along with new requirements at the school. As long as he doesn't undermine Shinigami, there's nothing no one can really do."

"We need to make him mess up." Death Scythe said quietly. "That's what he always did to us to get us in trouble; he'd leave the science lab unlocked or leave a frog in a classroom. Let's do the same to him. What can't he avoid?"

They all went quiet for a minute. "Women." Vivian said and looked up at the table. They all turned to her with questioning faces except Medusa who could read her exact thoughts. "Use me and set him up."

"That's far too dangerous, Norman has the ability to keep a weapon in their human form." Stein said quickly. "Who know what will happen."

"He'll rape me, I know that. We can get him that way." Vivian said. "It wouldn't bother me much if we can get him tossed in jail or something."

"Medusa, can't you just kill him?" Death Scythe asked looking over at her. "You're not under Shinigami's rules."

"I am though. The treaty, remember? I have to help, that means I can't go around slaughtering people. If I could I would have before he shot Stein." She said and traced her finger around the table. "We could set him up, but you'd have to be very careful, he could easily turn this around. The other night he was paling around with the police."

"So he's got the law." Kami said, "we've gone behind the law before. Anyway, Medusa, did you witness Stein getting shot?"

"Yes, but my word won't hold up with Shinigami. Witch." She said pointing to herself and shrugged.

They went quite again. Death Scythe sighed, "we use Viv as bait then."

"No." Stein said quickly. "You're willing to let her get hurt because of what we did to him."

"He tried to kidnap my daughter!" Death Scythe yelled standing up and throwing his hands down on the table.

"So you're adding people that will get injured?!" Stein asked and met him by copying him. "This is our fault and we're going to let someone completely uninvolved get raped so we can get him in jail so his cop buddies can get him out! That won't help a fucking thing Spirit!" Stein yelled and stopped to see Spirit with a strange face. "Uh… sorry Sempai." Stein slowly sank into his chair and looked rather guilty.

Spirit sat down too and crossed his arms. Kami leaned over on him and petted his arm.

"I think we should use Vivian as well." Said a tiny voice that lead back to Marie who had stood against the wall watching all of them for the entire time. She looked up, "even if Norman's friends with the police, she's a celebrity and a supermodel, they'll believe her over a politician since every man will be staring at her."

"I can offer my securities to her; I'm very good at installing bugs into people." Medusa said looking at the supermodel, "if we can get a computer hooked up to my radio, we can record everything so we'll be able to catch him."

"We can do that." Death Scythe said and turned to everyone to see Stein get up and walk away. "Then we're all in agreement." from Medusa except for Stein and the table went quiet until Medusa pulled out a small black fol


	25. Chapter 25

"How do you bug me?" Vivian asked, "is it a wire or a chip?" She asked expecting something technologic from the witch as Medusa walked over and quickly shoved her fingers into the models mouth. After a second she retracted the hand and Vivian felt sick.

"I use snakes, you have five in you. I have a radio that my snakes broadcast on." Medusa said quietly and began walking away. "Well, I have to find the good doctor and see about hooking them up to the computer."

Medusa quickly walked out of the place and shut the door behind her. Death Scythe turned to Kami and then to Vivian. "Why is Medusa this willing to help?" Nuru twitched a little but it was enough to catch his eye. "Sis?"

"Hm?" She said not straying up from the comic book, but casually turning the page.

"Do you know why Medusa's helping us?" Death Scythe asked her walking over and sitting on the table in front of her.

"Nope." She said and flipped the next page. Death Scythe grabbed a foot, pulled off a sandal and began tickling her. Nuru immediately crunched over into hysterics dropping the book.

Death Scythe stopped and Nuru gained her composure back somewhat. "You're not telling me something."

"I…" Death Scythe grabbed her foot and held it up. "Franken and the witch were involved romantically. I don't know the details but it was horribly, horribly obvious. Don't tickle me again." Nuru said and turned her leg into a blade and pulled it away carefully. "I didn't tell, got it?" She said softly and exited the room quickly the blade clicking against the floor.

Marie sat down in a chair and turned to Vivian and mouthed 'leave' to her knowing that Medusa would soon be tuning in. The supermodel began walking out and Kami walked over to Marie and knelt down grabbing her hands as the death scythe began crying. "Marie, you alright?"

"No, I don't know what his problem is! He says he's using Vivian as a shield but then he refuses to use her and then witch Medusa." She said and Kami knelt in and cradled her.

"Let's go then, we can go stay at my house." Death Scythe said, "I'll go see if Soul and Maka will wake up."

Stein sat on a bench on the opposite end on town that was pointed so the person can see out into the desert. He tried to keep his mind blank but it wasn't helping any. Footsteps approached along with the buzzing of a radio frequency. It stopped buzzing and gave way to complete silence. "It's your house; I bugged it a while ago. They all left about an hour ago, even Marie."

Stein just sat there facing foreword and Medusa sat down next to him putting the radio between them. She held out a hand with a single dead flower. "I took the liberty of not watering it for you."

Stein laughed and took the flower from her. "Dead, slightly beaten, and it looks like you attempted dying it blue." He said and sighed. He lost all emotions and rolled the stem in his hand just staring at it.

"Your pretty little model ejected my snakes. She threw them up right after she walked out, they didn't have time to spread. We can't bug her and she doesn't know that." Stein stopped and looked at her. "I took another liberty, Mizune has infested her walls and Eruka and Free are getting camera equipment, they'll be setting up a camera outside her hotel room."

"You're taking a lot of liberties." Stein said and turned back to the flower to continue turning it in his fingers. "I really don't want to pay you back. I don't love you."

"You don't know what love is." She said moving over and setting the radio on the pavement below. "She's fragile, that's why you like her, and she's easily manipulated. That's why you like her, but you like someone to push back, don't you." Stein stopped and turned his head looking at her.

"The insanity is growing inside you because you're next to me." She said her head changing to be more snakelike. "Let it take over, it's only natural."

The flower dropped from Stein's hand and he stood up and began to walk away from her but stopped. He turned his face smiling insanely. "_Aren't you coming_?"

Medusa got up and picked the radio up from off the ground and began following him through the town to his house which was abandoned at the moment Stein walked in and felt Medusa trace her finger tips along the back of his neck. She set the radio down and pulled Stein's neck down so there faces met.

There was something that let loose in his brain and Stein lost himself to lunacy. It hit him like a brick just like it had last time and he couldn't help himself. Stein grabbed Medusa and threw her down on the table. It was going just as Medusa had wanted it to; she grabbed him under the neck and pulled him in.

Stein's head moved down to her neckline and Medusa screamed a bit as Stein bit in marking her with his teeth. Stein's hand slid down her body and grabbed her thigh and raised it and put his other hand on the table. He stopped and looked over for a second, his hand wasn't directly on the table, there was a grey sown together cloth. An image flashed in his mind and his head dropped. Stein dropped her leg and dragged himself off the table blanket in hand. "I can't…"

Stein walked slowly down the hall in towards his room. He was upset at himself and it kept getting worse because he had the taste of Medusa on his lips. The heels followed him slowly at an unthreatening pace. Stein ignored her and went into his room and opened up the dusty draw full of cigarettes and a few lighters and grabbed one of each.

"Franken." Medusa said and touched his shoulder, his arm immediately whipped out and she flew against a wall.

"I don't love you. I'm not quite sure what it is between you and my insanity, but I am not my insanity. You'll get paid by the fact that I'm not going to kill you." He said and put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it walking out the door. "By the time I get back, you had better not be here."


	26. Chapter 26

"Over there, it'll get a good view of her door." Eruka said carrying a small box with a camera and some WiFi equipment. Behind her was Free carrying a ladder which he didn't need all that much. Both of them were dressed in janitorial outfits that belonged to the hotel staff, Free's was far too small, and Eruka's was falling off her it was so big. Free set the ladder down and opened it; Eruka handed him the camera and a nail and Free positioned the camera according to the door and pounded the nail in with his fist.

"How do I turn this thing on again?" Free asked looking down at her.

"The red button on the side." She said and he pressed it, got down and grabbed the ladder up. "Let's get back and hook it up to the VCR."

Disgusted. That how Stein felt about himself, he had nearly been pulled into another horrible situation because he can't control himself or his insanity. He had tried multiple medications over and over again, and the only thing that helped was the sweet poison of huffing away at a cigarette. His cure was going to kill him; Stein was aright with it as long as he was sane enough to correct everything for the time being.

He finished his cigarette well away from the hotel but waited until he saw a trash can to toss the bud in. He didn't want to leave his mark anywhere, he wanted to disappeared with the sun today and stay the night somewhere hidden away.

It was well within reason that Stein was nervous going to see Vivian, what was worse was that if she didn't comply with what he was going to ask her, he'd locked her away in a closet somewhere until she had to board a plane to get the Hell out of town.

He sighed and opened the glass doors and walked straight over to the elevator and pressed the up button. He waited for it and when the doors opened quickly stepped inside and pressed twelve. Stein waited, his arms folded in his lab coat, the glasses slipping off a bit, and the lingering smell of smoke calling to him. The doors opened again and took two steps out and turned to his left and stared at the second door.

He took a breath and stepped over to it and knocked on the door with two loud bangs. "Viv! It's Stein!" He called and waited until the door opened to Vivian in a robe. "We need to talk for a second."

"Come on in." She said and stepped back to allow him into the huge suite. Stein took a few steps in and turned around. "Don't let Norman come near you. You don't have to use yourself against him, you'll end up hurt."

"I get hurt, I'm a weapon, it happens." She said and closed the door to lean against it. Vivian put a thumb to her mouth. "Anyways, I already called Norman, he's on his way over, should be a half an hour or so. I can help."

"Don't." Stein said softly, "this is all my fault, I went and antagonized him again, he wouldn't have shot me or tried to kidnap Maka if I hadn't. Just don't, okay?"

"Why don't you let anyone help you?" Vivian asked calmly.

"I do, but this, this is bad. Just don't do it, I don't want to have to kidnap you and put you somewhere safe. Just promise me you'll turn him away." Stein said and walked up to her and looked at her, "Norman could kill you."

"I'll turn him away." She said and Stein grabbed the door knob but Vivian grabbed his arm. "Keep Marie safe then. I know she's the one you're really worried about. Her seeing you as a monster. You never got over the face on that girl when you killed her cat in front of her and pulled out all it's organs, did you?"

"Something's you never get over." Stein muttered and opened the door as she stepped out of the way. He stepped out and she leaned against the doorway and looked at him. "Thank you."

"If he doesn't go away, I'll stab him for you." She said and Stein smiled and filed into the elevator again.

"Marie-Sensei, we picked you some flowers." Maka said displaying a bouquet of wild flowers and the occasional flowering weed. Soul behind her smiled and they tried to cheer the hammer up.

"That's very sweet. Thank you, both of you." She said and sniffled at the dining room table. "You don't need to worry though, go and have fun while you can get away with everything."

Maka sighed and took Soul's hands leading him out of the room letting Marie be alone. Marie raised a wrist and wiped the tears from her face and sniffled again staring at the flowers naming quite a few of them in her head.

There was the sound of shoes and Marie turned up to see Death Scythe hand her a bundle of roses. "There's a message in there." He said and took off out of the room.

Marie shuffled through the flowers and found a small little card tied to them with a small sliver ribbon. She flipped it open. 'Marie – I'm an asshole. I'm sorry if I hurt you – Stein.' Marie got up with roses in hand and walked out of the dining room to the foyer where Death Scythe and Stein were leaning against the wall talking in hushed voices which stopped as she came closer.

"Death Scythe, can we have a second?" She asked quietly. The red head nodded and went out of the room quickly. Marie walked up to him and looked up at him. "What went on between you and Medusa?"

Stein sighed, "To get her to cooperate during the Io problem, I agreed to sleep with her. She's… intrigued by me." He said and turned away. "I don't like to talk about it."

"Why?"

"Because every time I think about it, it disgusts me." He said and turned back to her looking her in the eye. "I'd like nothing more then to see her cut in half again."

Marie looked down, stepped foreword and rested her forehead on Stein's chest. She didn't really have anything else to stay, so she just stood there with her head being warmed by his body heat. Stein wrapped his arms around her and dropped his head down. "Let's get home; this entire day's just been exhausting."

"Okay." She said and they released from each other and walked out of the door. Soul and Maka stood up at the top of the stairs, Maka smiled. "That's so cute, Stein-Sensei and Marie-Sensei are in love with each other."

"That's bad, if we do one thing wrong in front of one of them, the other one will know… We'll be screwed over twice." Soul said thinking, "poor Black Star. He might get expelled."

"I doubt that." Maka said and walked down the stairs to look out the door. "Awe their holding hands." Soul crept up behind her quietly and grabbed her hand. They looked at each other and he smiled warmly at her.


	27. Chapter 27

Stein and Marie were having tea at the kitchen table talking about things avoiding the state of both their minds and more importantly avoiding the fact that they now have a relationship, however rocky it is. Marie was careful not to let her hands stray from the cup, she was afraid if she did she might do something stupid. Stein acted perfectly normal; having to hide insanity most of the time made you a very good performer.

"So…" Marie said awkwardly and turned away not knowing what to say.

"If I'm making you uncomfortable I can leave." Stein said setting his cup down.

"No! It's just…" Marie made a strange face and laughed a bit. Her face changed to surprise as the phone behind her on the wall rang. She grabbed a hand and picked it up. "Hello?" Marie's face blanked. She reached her hand out, the cord stretching over and offered the phone to Stein.

Stein took it quickly. "Stein."

"Go to the cross lamp, now!" Hissed a voice and the phone line died. Stein handed her the phone and quickly stood up. Marie hung the phone up but kept her eyes on Stein. "Where are you going?"

"I think something must have happened, I'll be back. Stay in the house and if you feel like you need it, grab a scalpel." Stein shoved the chair in and threw his lab coat back on and ran out the door. Marie sat at the table with her cup in her hands watching the door flap in the winds until it shut, the spring too rusted to work.

The cross lamp is the first lamp post out of town. It was made of steel and painted black. It's well known for because it was the only original piece brought from Shinigami's former home when he moved to the Nevadan desert. For those who know better, such as Stein, it also marks the edge of Shinigami's soul meaning the protection granted by it was gone. At the top were four scythes crossed to hold a black bowl with a small fire burning. For some reason, the fire never went out.

Stein stopped some fifteen feet inside Shinigami's soul and stared at the woman leaning against the street light. Medusa had her head cocked back and was staring at the stars the graced the desert skies. "I haven't seen the stars this way in a while." She raised a hand and began pointing at specific things he couldn't pick up on. "Astrology is useless unless you know how to read it properly. There's a large sign of tragedy out tonight. Step at least five feet closer."

"What's going on?" Stein asked and walked all the way over to her. "I was somewhat busy."

"Making amends with Marie, I'm aware." She said and dropped her arm. "Look at that tree over there, at the high branches." Stein turned his head looked, saw nothing and turned back. "I put a camera up there. Your face is on it now. I should be able to clear you if Norman goes through with his plans."

"What plans?" Stein asked and looked at Medusa, Medusa smiled and then frowned.

"I bugged his apartment as well. He's planning on killing your little supermodel. He said she never really loved him anyway, claimed she was just as crazy as you are. Her apartment has video cameras about outside and things. I made sure to take care of you."

Stein stopped and turned away; he leaned around and leaned on the opposite side of the pole. "So… you're not angry at me?"

"No, though I wish I could have finished." Medusa cooed and turned her head looking around at his shoulder. "I'm going to tell you something else, the videos will only clear you, it won't convict Norman, you'll have to find another way of beating him."

"I was afraid something like that would happen." Stein said and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He shoved it in his mouth lit it, and pulled it away blowing out a small funnel of smoke. "What do I do?"

"How should I know?" She said slyly. "After all, I'm only so useful to you."

"I know you have a plan witch Medusa. What do I need to do?" He asked and she flipped her hand out and held up a small card. Stein took it and looked at it, it was his ID. "Are you planning on impersonating me?"

"I already did that, I'll reveal the rest tomorrow." Medusa said, "just know, that everything has been taken care of, Franken. But do one thing and behave yourself no fighting or anything, no big yelling, just remain perfectly calm."

"You make it sound like I'm getting arrested." Medusa stood quite for a minute and Stein took another drag. "How long do I have?"

"I'd say about twenty minutes." Medusa stood up and began walking back into Death City. "Don't expect any lock picks or metal files in a cake tomorrow, they have metal detectors now."

"How will you get in, the prisons overly secure?" Stein asked and Medusa turned around and hissed. "Oh, right. Snake."

"Well, after you spend five minutes running home, you have fifteen to spend with Marie. I suggest you run fast." She hadn't even finished her sentence and Stein was past her and out of her sights. Stein ran faster then Medusa had predicted he could, he made it back in three minutes and ran into the door to stop with his hand pressed against it, breathing heavily and looking around the room.

"Ma… MARIE!" Stein bellowed and he heard high heels rush out to him. "Norman's… he's planning on killing Vivian and blaming me, I had to get on camera. The police will be here in a little bit to arrest me."

"Why can't you just tell them that Norman did it?" She stopped and looked at him as he traced a hand along her face. "You're going to let them blame you?"

"Medusa has a plan, I just hope it works whatever it is." He said and began moving his hand along her neck.

"She didn't tell you?"

Stein shook his head and leaned into her and kissed her. He pulled back to move his mouth to her ear. "I don't know exactly how long I still have here, but I know it'd like to spend it with you, Marie."


	28. Chapter 28

Stein shook his head and leaned into her and kissed her. He pulled back to move his mouth to her ear. "I don't know exactly how long I still have here, but I know it'd like to spend it with you, Marie."

Marie went silent, the thoughts in her head racing. She heard her self mutter something in agreement and her hands went behind his neck pulling his face towards her and they broke apart long enough for her to say "My bed."

The two walked down the hall to her room, and Marie closed the door behind them. Stein walked over to the dresser and took his glasses off and folded them to set them down gently. He felt a hand come up his chest and Marie began pulling off his lab coat. Stein smiled, "you are aware that it's very likely the police will interrupt."

"We can finish when you get out of jail." Marie said and jerked one of his arms around her waist pinning her against the dresser. They looked at each other and smiled.

Their heads met again, lips brushing firmly. Stein's arm constricted around her and he pulled her from the dresser making her body press tightly against his. Turning Marie's legs hit the edge of the bed. She sat down, his body following and laid back, Stein's arm slipping out from under her and on to her hip.

Marie's hand glided down to his stomach and began tugging his shirt up. Stein broke from her for a second and reached his hand up and pulled the shirt off and tossed it on the floor. The meister's large hand returned to her leg to slide up under the edge of her dress, his head dropped to her neck and he kissed her gently.

There was a small smooth noise that lulled from the weapon's throat. Stein lifted off her and yanked her dress up and pulled it off her with her help than tossed it off to the side revealing her black undergarments.

Stein's hands just reached the bra's latch when the front door was opened loudly. His hand moved away and he lowered his head and laughed to turn to the door and see Death Scythe run by, hear his shoes screech in the hall and then turn around into the room. "Stein, Shini…. Uh…. I'll be in the kitchen."

Death Scythe quickly adverted his eyes and walked away into the kitchen. Stein kissed her quickly on the lips and apologized. Marie patted his face; Stein got up, found his shirt and walked out putting it on wishing he had at least five more minutes. Stein sat down across from Death Scythe and sighed, "So?"

"Shinigami's coming with your beloved Norman in a few seconds along with two jail guards. Vivian was brutally beaten, it's a miracle she survived."

"So Norman didn't kill her." He said thankfully and leaned back running his hands through his hair until he hit the bolt. His hands went down to his side. "How long do I have until they get here?"

They heard soft footsteps and Marie walked out fully clothed and leaned against Stein wrapping her arms around his neck and laying her head on his and staring at Death Scythe. Death Scythe looked at them, "you already knew this would happen to Vivian?"

"Medusa told me right when it was happening, she has a plan to clear me… at least I hope she will. Kind of had a fight earlier today, threw her against a wall." Stein said calmly and grabbed Marie's hands holding them. "I won't be there for long, hopefully. Plus, I didn't do it, there's no evidence linking me to her."

"Three people said you were at the apartment earlier. No one saw Norman." Death Scythe said and turned to the door at the same time Stein's head swiveled to see Shinigami entering the house with the fatty pudgy little man behind him with two guards, just as Death Scythe had said.

"Norman's trespassing…" Stein said playfully. "Wouldn't want to get such a simple violation, would you?"

Norman looked at him, rubbed his hair and stepped foreword, "I just came along in support of you, Franken."

"Only Spirit and Marie can call me that." Stein snapped quickly.

Shinigami clapped his hands together quickly. "Stein, Vivian was…"

"Spirit told me already. I didn't do it. I did see Vivian earlier today, but I assure you, she walked me out of her apartment. Of course, my word means absolutely nothing to Norman." Stein turned his up and looked at Marie, "can you get me a pack of cigarettes?"

"Sure." She said and quickly walked back to the lab and grabbed a pack from his drawer then decided on two and came back and handed them to him. Stein rolled a pack into the sleeve of each arm and turned back to Shinigami, "can I make one request, totally not to do with me?"

"Um… A request. Highly unusual but if it's sound." Shinigmai said thinking. "Nothing to out of the ordinary then."

"Keep Norman away from Vivian, she absolutely hates him. In her state, getting upset might do her bad." Stein said standing and turning around to ignore Norman's calls that Stein's lying. He placed a hand on Marie's cheek and whispered, "if I'm not out soon, you can kill Medusa."

Marie laughed, "alright. Bye." She said and Stein bent over and kissed her quickly. He turned, nodded to Death Scythe and walked over next to the guards.

"You know," Norman said through his teeth, "for an innocent guy, you sure are surrendering easily."

"It's because I'm innocent that I'm surrendering, I have nothing to hide." Stein put his hands behind his back and was cuffed. He smiled and turned to Norman, "You've got a bit of blood on the collar of your shirt, Norman. Good luck tomorrow."

Norman quickly looked at the small stain and quickly huffed. "Must be from my nosebleed earlier, stupid allergies."

Shinigami stood quite and watched as he exited behind the guards before looking to Death Scythe, "Stein's innocent isn't he?"

"A blind person could see that." Death Scythe said sarcastically. "Once we get things set up and arranged, I'm sure we can prove Norman's been doing this."

"Doing what?" Shinigami asked in his original voice.

"Stein was shot in the back, Maka was nearly kidnapped, and some one broke into Kami's apartment and tried to beat her." Death Scythe said upset. "Vendetta."


	29. Chapter 29

Nuru was entertaining Marie in the living room of Death Scythe's house. He decided it wasn't wise for Marie to stay by herself in Stein's house, especially the night before the election. Maka and Soul had basically barricaded themselves upstairs; they even took the trouble of barring all the windows in case of another kidnapping attempt. As the extra precaution, Soul was wearing a helmet and locked his hand on to Maka's only letting it go if one of them went into the bathroom. Kami was with them for a bit joking and talking until they began to nod off and she shoved them in Maka's old room.

Kami walked down the stairs carefully avoiding the randomly skewed junk they had set up to foil people sneaking up the stairs. She turned and walked into the kitchen where Death Scythe was sitting trying to figure out his own plan to get Stein out of jail. So far he had come up with a few stick figure drawing and a lot of crossing out marks. He looked up at Kami and scratched his head. "I've never had to worry about getting out of jail or proving someone's innocent. If only Joe were still alive…. Stein had to go and stir things up as always."

"It's not his fault; Hartwell probably would have gone after you two anyway. He's that type of a bastard, remember?" Kami walked to a cupboard and pulled out a mug and a tea packet. She opened the packet and set the tea bag in and walked over to the sink and ran hot water filling it. "So, anything ingenious yet?"

"We have Marie smash up the jail and you go in threatening everyone with me. That's about it." He yawned and stretched his arms. "I don't know what to do Mama. If Shinigami can't physically prove Norman did it… Stein may have to be put to death."

"You know, these life and death things always happen to him. It's like someone up there's picking on him." Kami sat down next to him and looked over the pages rolling her eyes. She took the pages from him, crumpling them in her hands, and tossed them out. "Instead of breaking Stein out of jail or finding a way to prove Norman did those things to Vivian, why don't we focus on beating Norman fair and square?"

"Fair and square, you mean challenging him to a fight?" Kami slapped her hand to her forehead and shook briskly. Death Scythe began laughing and leaned over moving her hand out of her face and placing his lips on her for a second. "I know what you meant. I just like the way you look when you're frustrated."

"Well stop it, this is serious." She said and playfully pushed a hand against his shoulder.

"Look, we're all burned out; let's pick this up tomorrow." He said and turned at her and dropped his smiled. "Move back in with Papa."

Kami stopped, made a little coughing noise and looked at him in surprise. She took a second to look away and try to process his words but turned back with, "huh?"

"We've already agreed that we miss each other, so just come back home." Death Scythe grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "I don't like sleeping alone every night."

"I… We need to work things out before we even get to that, Papa." Kami said and tried to pull her hand away but Death Scythe just pulled it back. "Spirit… Can I have my hand?"

"If I let go of your hand do you know what will happen?" Death Scythe asked her and Kami shook her head slowly. "You'll get up, leave the room, go to bed alone, wake up in the morning and be reluctant to talk to me. You've done that every time we had a fight. Let's work things out here and now."

"Right now?" She asked and he nodded enthusiastically. "Well, frankly Papa, I don't know whether I can trust you. You've got a bad history of womanizing and you're a bit of a drunk."

"I've been trying to keep to myself, and I haven't had a thing to drink since Friday." He said remembering back to the bar. "I even changed my bar; I don't go to the one with all the women company anymore since Stein refuses to go in there."

"Spirit…" Kami said softly.

"I don't even know what to say," Death Scythe said interrupting her. "And you know what I don't even know what to say because everything I've ever said you pick tiny little holes in and then the entire thing collapses like a…"

"Spirit!" Stopping him she broke out laughing and grabbed the back of his hand with her free one, "if you stop freaking out on me, I can finish what I was going to tell you." The scythe clamped his mouth shut dramatically and watched her eyes carefully. "If you promise to do better at those things…"

"Which I am." He whispered quickly.

"I'll move back in." Her smile was warm and it made Death Scythe stop and grew a smirk to match it. "Just as soon as Yumi gets back from her duties…"

"Tonight. Everything you currently have is in that bag you brought. You're practically done already, Mama." Death Scythe said happily and let go of her hand to stand up. Yawning again he stretched, "well, I'm thoroughly tired."

"Go pass out I'll be up in a bit." She said and finally took a sip of her tea. Death Scythe nodded breaking from the stretch and bent down to kiss her on the top of the head and go upstairs. Kami heard a crash, "the junk on the stairs."

"MaaaAAAAaaamaaaaa…." The man cried and Kami got up leaving her tea on the counter to tend to her ex-husband.

"Take off the helmet…" Maka growled lying next to Soul Staring at his face through the football head gear. "It annoys me."

"What if someone comes to knock me out and take you again?" He asked and before he knew it Maka grabbed it and yanked it off, "hey."

She dropped the helmet to one side of the bed and put her arms around his waits, cuddling her head to his chest making him immobile. "You can put it back on in the morning, alright?"

"Fine. I just don't feel safe with out it." He muttered and slight pain surged through his head. Maka moved her head up and kissed him. "Goodnight."

He replied with 'um-hm' and Maka went back to her position.


	30. Chapter 30

Stein was actually very comfortable in his cell. He didn't have to share it which meant no 'what are you in for' conversations; he was thankful for that because he couldn't say 'I beat up one of the hottest women in the world supposedly' and not have to actually beat someone up to protect himself. Another thing Stein liked about it was the fact that there were no windows; he wouldn't be woken up by the sun, meaning he could spend all the time he wanted sleeping.

In fact he had slept very soundly through the night and didn't even bother to wake up the next morning until a hand touched his shoulder. Stein lifted his head to see that Medusa had slithered her way into his jail cell. He yawned and sat up sniffling. "You could have waited until I had woken up."

Stein pulled one of the cigarette packs from his sleeve and hit the box popping one out. Medusa sat down next to him shifting her purse to her lap. "I thought you quit. Won't Marie be upset?"

"She brought them to me. Anyway, I'm in jail," he said obviously and pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the end of it. He shoved the end in his mouth and took a deep breath. He exhaled the smoke out and turned to her, "I don't really have anything better to do unless you brought me some chalk so I could draw."

"I'm sure the guards would find that amusing." She said shortly and opened her purse and pulled out a small piece of paper. "I'm doing something incredibly nice for you, I just thought I should let you know so you can thank me instead of punching me in the stomach with your soul wavelength like normal."

Stein looked at the sheet and turned to her, "I can't…"

"Don't worry; I took care of that part. It's why I stole your identification. Through small illegal means I found a giant way to beat him legally." She said happily and handed him a pen then pulled out another sheet and a pen. She turned to him, a little mischievous in her smile, "the thing is, I need a name or I wouldn't even be here."

Stein looked back down at the sheet and the pen, out into the darkness, then to Medusa herself. "Remind me never to actually piss you off. I'm afraid of what might happen now."

"I'm flattered." She cooed and Stein quickly tossed the sheet up against the wall and began writing. "You know, I did stop by and bug Vivian's room."

"How is she?"

"Good, she's not awake yet, may not be awake for a few more days. They've cleaned all the blood off her, besides a few good black bruises, she's still very attractive." Medusa said and leaned back against the wall crossing one leg over the other. "Hey Franken, why did you tell her that you didn't actually love her?"

"Because I really don't like to lie a lot, and I already felt bad because I was using her and making her believe I loved her." He said and sighed pausing briefly. "That's horribly cruel isn't it?"

"Sounds like something fun, I think." She said holding a hand to her chest, "of course I'm a witch."

"By the way, when am I getting out of jail?" Stein asked leisurely as he finished by signing his name and handing the paper to her.

"They'll get the word to free you around five tonight, depending on my timing, maybe five-thirty, I want to make a good entrance." She said accepting the paper and reading his scribbling. Medusa stopped smiling but quickly copied the things Stein wrote and put them on her paper along with her own signature.

"Witches and their timing." Stein huffed quickly and stared at her for a minute puffing at his cigarette. "Now is a good time to leave."

"Right." She said standing and set the purse with papers and pens through the bars. "See you later tonight."

"I'm hoping not." He said and laid down cigarette still in hand. Medusa quickly changed to the snake and slithered out grabbing the bag in her fangs. Stein waited for a minute and sat back up again resting his elbows on his knees and his head on a hand. "I hope she doesn't kill me for this."

Nuru had been assigned by Death Scythe to guard Vivian which she view as the most boring job ever invented by man. Nuru, to her pleasure, had found a large stack of her comic books she left in Death Scythe's house and was able to take about fifty with her before she had trouble carrying them all.

There was a noise from the door to her room and a fat hand moved into her sight. Nuru set down her comic book and quickly presented her calf as the white scythe blade to the neck of the politician Norman Hartwell. "You're especially not allowed in, leave or I'll kill you."

"I just wanted to check on her." He said and tried to press in but the blade came closer to his neck. "You're a stupid little girl." Norman touched the blade and looked at her as she stayed where she was. "I want you back in weapon mode."

"Witches rope." Nuru said presenting her wrist to him. "By the way, you're on a audio enabled camera." She said and pointed back to the small black box with a flashing red light. "It feeds directly to Shinigami."

"Like I'll believe…" Norman felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the grim reaper behind him. "Shinigami-sama! What a coincidence!"

"Norman, leave!" Shinigami bellowed in his original voice and began to drag him away then stopped and tossed him away. "If you come within fifty feet of her again, you'll be insubordinate and will join Stein in jail."

Norman stood up, the look on his face insanely mad. He straightened his jacket and began to walk away muttering under his breath. Nuru looked at the God. "What's going to happen if he wins the election?"

"We're all screeeeeewed…" He said in the high voice and turn towards the mirror. "Alriiiiiiight, have fun watching her, I'll keep by my monitor."


	31. Chapter 31

"I've called this meeting because we need to do something to get Stein out of jail." Death Scythe said leaning on the table with his fists. Marie and Kami looked at him while keeping their hands working on their tea. The kitchen went quiet for a while before Kami sighed.

"Spirit this is hardly a meeting, it's not even a session." Kami said quickly and used her foot to kick out the chair. "Will you sit down already before you embarrass yourself again?"

Marie giggled, "I thought we were having tea time." She sighed and took in the smell of Kami's cooking. Marie turned her head to him, "we do need a good plan though. What do you have in mind Death Scythe?"

Death Scythe was about to say something and Kami quickly blurted out, "and nothing illegal." Death Scythe sat down throwing his head on the table. Kami rolled her eyes and turned to Marie. "What do you suggest?"

"I don't know, Stein just told me to trust Witch Medusa and if he's not out soon, I can kill her." Marie said moving the tea spoon around in the cup. She gently pulled it out tapped in on the side and set it down sighing. "I'm still nervous about it though. I think he puts too much faith in her."

"We need our own plan that will work and we won't get tossed in jail for." Kami said and relaxed back against the chair.

"Can't you guys just out vote this guy?" Maka said walking into the kitchen in her pajamas. She wearily rubbed her eyes and walked in going towards the cupboards and pulled out a cereal box and set it down. "Why does everyone always over look the obvious answer, it's like some bad story cliché."

The adults went quiet while Maka poured her cereal into a bowl and grabbed the milk carton and a spoon. She walked out of the room yawning and Death Scythe looked at everyone, "alright, then that's our plans, who is going to be mayor?"

"What are you talking about? No one's running besides Norman." Marie said quickly, "and it's election day, who would up and spontaneously run for mayor on the day on an election?"

"Spirit, you're running for mayor then!" Kami said happily. "It'll give you something to do. Now you just need to get people to vote for you."

"A) I'm not running." Death Scythe said quickly. "B) There are only two registered voters; Shinigami and Norman. C) Shinigami votes for his son and Norman's voting for himself. Anyway, no one else can register for this election, we could out him in another four years though."

"Well shit." Kami said loudly and turned to look out the door and see the sun growing stronger. "Maybe we will have to trust that witch to get Stein out."

Death Scythe sat down next to Kami and leaned his head on her shoulder. "To bad Sid and Nygus are out on assignment, they'd know what to do. Sid always has a plan." Death Scythe moved in closer. "Poor Franken."

"I'm going to go see him." Marie said standing up pushing the chair back. She grabbed her tea and began chugging the warm drink.

"I don't think that's wise." Kami cooed softly. "What are you going to do with those bars between you? You can't smash him out without getting in trouble yourself."

"I just want to see him." Marie smiled setting the cup back down on the plate. Kami was about to say something but Death Scythe quickly put a hand around her waist and pulled her stomach to shut her up, he looked up at her shaking his head against her. Marie quickly left the room, her heels clicking against the floor until the door opened.

"She shouldn't be going alone." Kami watched as the door closed. "Go follow her for me, would you?"

"Stein would know when I'm within fifty feet, wouldn't work." Death Scythe said and pulled himself off his ex-wife. "You know, maybe we can talk with Shinigami, and make sure things are going to go alright with Stein. There's no physical evidence unlike that plant someone put at Joe's murder."

Marie was confident but uncomfortable showing up at the jail; it was also the first time she had to use her upper level pass for anything personal. She quickly flashed the guards the pass and told them she was here to 'interrogate' Stein. "Fifth cell on the left."

Marie went into the barred area and counted the doors and bars until she came upon the strong sweet smell of cigarettes and turned her head to see Stein laying on his bed smoking. She took two steps towards the bars and tapped one of the iron poles with her finger nails.

Stein turned his head and shot up walking over to the bars. "Hey…" He saw the cigarette and dropped it putting it out with his shoes. "Anything yet? Medusa said I'll be out around five tonight."

"Nothing yet, it must be a last minute thing, hopefully." Marie said and looked away. "Are you sure you can trust her? She is a witch." Marie turned her eye back to him and sighed softly. "I can't believe she's doing this for your good alone. She must be getting something out of this."

"Right now, I couldn't really care, I need to get Norman." Stein said and moved back to the bed and sat down. He rubbed his hands nervously together, "he can't win, I hope Medusa takes care of that too…"

"Why do you have so much faith in her?" Marie asked suddenly. "Is it the insanity or you really believe she actually wants to help us."

"I ran out of options. Plus," he said and got back up walking over to the bars where he wrapped his hands around. "If Medusa messes up, Shinigami will kill her, and that's far more satisfying than watching Norman lose. I can stay in jail for a while, but to see her dead…" Stein's smile was eerie.

Marie took a step back, "I just wanted to check in on you. I better get going." She turned and Stein's arm caught her through the bars.

"I'll be out soon, don't worry. Worse case scenario is I break out, but I'm not planning on being here for more then a week." Stein's smile ease to a gentle one and he let go of her arm and traced her cheek. Marie smiled, touched the hand quickly and was on her way.


	32. Chapter 32

For no particular reason, this year Shinigami had decided to have the ballot box in his presence at all time and watch carefully over it along with his son who simple spent the time making sure the box was perfectly symmetrical. Of course, he put in his ballot and watched the box bored to wit's end for the next nine hours accompanied by various people. The closer to five it got, the more people came until it included Marie, Death Scythe, Kami, Maka and Soul.

"Four more minutes…" Death Scythe actually said happily jeering down at his watch. "If Norman doesn't show up, Kid's mayor again."

"Oh… What a pleasant thought." Death the Kid said extremely sarcastically. They heard foot steps coming down into Shinigami's office. Everyone in the room suddenly sulked, expect for Kid, as Norman Hartwell strolled in happily in one of his cheap blue suits. He grabbed a ballot and checked his name and shoved it in the box. "Can I concede now?"

"Not for three more minutes." Shinigami said and Norman just stood there smiling. They all put on their meanest faces and stared at him.

"So, this election… Just a few more minutes until I'm the new mayor. Wonderful, isn't it?" Norman chirped Kami had to stick a hand out in front of her husband to keep him from attacking. "Now, I'm sensing some hostility."

"I'm sensing a witch…" Maka said lifting her head towards the door and felt a familiar soul walking towards them at a quickened pace. "Witch Medusa!"

"What?" She called back coming into sight with a TV, VCR and her purse on a cart, the TV cord was draping behind her. "You would not believe all the cords I had to use to get this TV in here. What time is it?"

"Two to five." Death Scythe said reading off his watch. Medusa grabbed her purse and pulled out two ballots and held them up to Shinigami, "These are both legal." She quickly shoved the ballots into the box.

"You can vote?" Marie asked. "When did you register?"

"Yesterday. I maybe a witch, but I am a legal citizen of Death City still." She smiled and began going through her purse and pulled out a VCR tape. "This is a little surprise for later. I'm going to let time expire on the election first."

Marie watched her carefully trying to find out what was going on. Norman however took the direct approach. "One ballot was yours correct, witch?"

Medusa nodded, "yes that is correct. If you go on about how a witch doesn't have her rights, I suggest you read the law more carefully, I have full rights to vote if I'm 18 and have a citizenship of the city. It the only two qualifications to become registered. I even have my registry with me if you'd like to see it." Medusa flipped through and her purse and pulled out two folded piece of paper and held up the first one. "See, I registered yesterday at 3:42 pm making it legal for me to vote today."

Norman fidgeted nervously. "You turned in two ballots. You can only vote once. One of her ballots doesn't count, Shinigami-sama." Norman said turning around to the God. Death Scythe's watch went off and the day was over.

"We'll deal with that soooooon." Shinigami said taking the box and pulling off the top, "okaaaaay! Time to count the votes!" Shinigami reached a hand in and pulled out a ballot, "one vote for Kid-kun by meeeee…. Because he so cute sitting in the mayor's chair."

"Father, please…." Kid stressed quickly rolling his eyes.

"One vote for Norman by Norman." Shinigami said and set the ballot on the table and picked up another one. "One for… Marie? Congrats you're in the running!" Shinigami yelled loudly. Marie's head immediately shot to Medusa who smiled. "That's by Medusa. And the last one…"

"Doesn't count…" Norman smiled and turned around to everyone prepared to give a speech.

Shinigami pulled it out and laughed. "It does count. One vote for Marie by Stein." He said and held out the ballot to Norman. Norman stopped and lost his breath. "Looks like Marie's mayor! Congrats Marieeeeeeeeeeeee….. You should hire Kid-kun as an advisor; he's good with being a mayor."

"He's not registered!" Norman shouted and Medusa switched papers and walked it up handing the registration to Shinigami. Shinigami looked it over, "It's good, it's signed by Patti, see?"

"Kid, your gun's a city worker?" Soul asked the future Shinigami.

"She needs something to do on the weekends or else she destroys the house." Kid explained and went back to observing the bout. "Well, I concede. Have fun, I'm going home."

"Bye Kid-kun, daddy will get you a different city office!" Shinigami said waving and Kid growled and stalked out of the room. Shinigami tossed his arms together, "I think he's disappointed."

"How is this fair?" Norman yelled. "I had this in the bank! All that trouble I went through and I got nothing out of it!" Norman stomped his foot and made the mistake of trying to hit Medusa. She quickly sent out several vector arrows keeping him bouncing around the room.

"Shinigami-sama, I have some video footage I think you'd find interesting." Medusa said and pulled out a tape and shoved it in the VCR.

"Is this child appropriate?" Shinigami asked noting Maka and Soul.

"It's real footage, not a movie." She snapped quickly. Her hand went up and a large arrow appeared under Norman and sent him in front of Shinigami. "The politician may find this entertaining to watch."

"Cursed Witch! Shinigami, we should kill her!" Norman said and Shinigami slapped him upside the head.

Shinigami walked over next to her and looked at her. "What's the footage of?"

"Stein, it'll put him away from the crime scene." She said quickly and pressed play. "And it'll put Norman Hartwell at it."


	33. Chapter 33

The black and white video showed Medusa with her head cocked back and staring up. "_I haven't seen the stars this way in a while_." Her arm went up and began pointing to things.. "_Astrology is useless unless you know how to read it properly. There's a large sign of tragedy out tonight. Step at least five feet closer_."

Stein stepped into view of the camera towering over her. "_What's going on? I was somewhat busy_."

"_Making amends with Marie, I'm aware_. _Look at that tree over there, at the high branches_." He did so and an image became clear. It was then Stein's face showing on the tape, there was no mistaking it was him. Medusa paused the footage and pointed to the time on the video's upper right hand corner. "This was at 9:56 last night. The beating was said to happen within three minutes either way of that time, quite difficult to do, wouldn't you say Shinigami-sama. It takes at least five minutes to get there from the edge of town and five back. This is actual evidence Stein didn't beat her."

"Stein's cleared then! This is wonderful news!" Shinigami said and Medusa hit the play button to let the video continue. "Is there more?"

"_I put a camera up there. Your face is on it now. I should be able to clear you if Norman goes through with his plans_." Medusa's voice said to the room from the TV.

"_What plans_?"

"_I bugged his apartment as well. He's planning on killing your little supermodel. He said she never really loved him anyway, claimed she was just as crazy as you are. Her apartment has video cameras about and things._" The video went static for a second and turned over to a hotel apartment. "This is Vivian Leandros's door."

"_Viv! It's Stein!"_ The door to the apartment opened to show Vivian. "_We need to talk for a second_."

"_Come on in_."

"_Don't let Norman come near you. You don't have to use yourself against him, you'll end up hurt."_

"_I get hurt, I'm a weapon, it happens_." The door closed behind the two and Shinigami turned to Norman. "Did you have any part in Vivian's attack?"

"No, not at all." Norman said quickly.

A minute passed and the door opened again. Stein stepped out and Vivian was fine behind him. "_Thank you."_

"_If he doesn't go away, I'll stab him for you_." Stein walked out of the picture and it cut away to a half an hour later. It showed them at 9:54 Norman walking up to her door and knocking. The door opened. "_Hey Norman, can I see you later, I think I'm going to throw up… Cheesecake was bad."_

"_Only need to talk to you for a second." _Norman tried pushing his way into the apartment and Vivian tried to stab him by turning her arm into a blade. Norman caught the blade and it turned back to an arm. "_You psychotic little bitch!" _She was dragged into the apartment. Two minutes later Norman emerged adjusting his jacket and wiping blood off his knuckles.

"Nor…" Shinigami said but stopped when he saw that Death Scythe had an arm around his neck. Death Scythe wasted no time pinning him up against a wall. "Hey Kami, why don't you tell Shinigami what else fat boy's been up to."

"He shot Stein three times in the back, sent someone to kill me and my daughter then tried to kidnap her." Kami said quite calmly and cracked her knuckles. "We'll go get Stein out and take Norman in."

"He does have to go in alive." Shinigami noted, "But by all means… take your personal justice. I don't like liars." Shinigami said childishly shoving his hands on his hips.

Maka and Soul quickly began discussing the possibilities that her parents might accidentally kill him and quickly followed after to watch the carnage. Marie walked over down to Shinigami and Medusa and looked at the witch. "I doubted you, I doubted you would actually help."

"Let's just say you owe me a favor." Medusa said, "not Franken, but you. I'll come and collect one day, but I'm not sure what I want from you." Medusa said and turned to look at Shinigami, "well, have I earned some trust back, Shinigami?"

"No, not really. It just proves that your obsession with Stein is creepy." Shinigami said honestly. The death god turned to the door. "Well, why don't we all go get Stein out of jail? Make it a nice little field trip!"

"Okay." Marie chimed and followed closely to the god asking her exactly what she does as mayor. Medusa followed behind by at least ten feet and refused to get any closer, she didn't want into one of their overly cheerily conversations about whatever floated through their heads.

It took them several minutes to navigate the large school and go to the jail portion. The three arrived in time to watch Norman be dragged in bleeding heavily by Death Scythe and Kami, both who were covered in his blood. "Did we go overboard, Mama?"

"No Papa, I think that's about right." Kami said quickly and they dragged him down to Stein's cell and put the key in it opening it.

"Stein, we found you a cell replacement." Death Scythe laughed and looked down at Norman who was going off about how he really didn't do it. Marie and Shinigami saw a large hand come out of the cell to throw the corrupt politician in the cell. Stein stepped out and smiled at them. "You're a free man."

Stein looked at Norman, "for some reason I think I was safer in the cell." Stein quickly slammed the door shut and began walking past them, past Shinigami and Marie and looked at Medusa and looked at his watch. "5:12, you're good with timing after all."


	34. Chapter 34

Death Scythe and Kami had taken the kids home, Shinigami had gone after his son promising to get him in Marie's cabinet. Stein and Marie had their hands clamped together like a steel trap and they made it obvious that Medusa, however much she had helped them, was unwelcome. They walked outside of Shibusen towards Stein's house and Medusa wasn't being shaken off. "So, what do you want Witch Medusa?"

Medusa shrugged innocently at Stein's words and kept up right besides Marie, "I don't know, I'm still trying to figure it out. After all, Marie's the one who owes me this time, I don't know what I want from her. Maybe something of no consequence… maybe her other eye, I just can't chose."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here." Marie snapped quickly sending Medusa off balance a bit. The witch took a second and smiled at the Death Scythe; Marie held an iron hard face at her. "Hey Stein, I'm dragging her off for a bit."

She dropped his hand and grabbed Medusa's arm and began to diverge from him. Stein watched for a second, "alright, you know where to find me." Stein waved for a second until he realized neither was watching and disappeared down the street.

Marie pulled Medusa a few blocks away from the school in complete silence and sat her down on a city bench. Medusa gleamed up at her, "a little angry at me?"

"Why won't you leave us alone? You're always messing everything up!" Marie cried tightening her hands into fists that conducted a little energy. "I just want to be happy for once in my life…"

"I'm not interrupting your happiness, you are. I'm not making you stand there, crying and shouting. That was your choice." Medusa crossed her ands and threw one leg over the other. She tilted her head and stared at Marie. "I feel no sympathy for a woman who's completely blind."

"Shut up! You should feel guilt! You released Kishin! You killed BJ! You've been tormenting Stein! It's all your fault!" Marie screamed and collapsed down onto her knees crying.

Medusa laughed loudly at her misery. "Really, you are so foolish. Here you are yelling at me, while Stein's at home all alone. You're quite stupid, aren't you, why not go and play with him then crying in front of me?"

"I'm… I'm just so angry at you." Marie said softly and brushed away the tears from her eye. Marie sniffled quickly. "How can you be so cruel to people?"

"I'm a witch." Medusa tried to remind her. She uncrossed her leg and leaned foreword. "Listen, all you're doing is giving me some entertainment. Do something productive or I'm leaving."

"What do you want…?" Marie took ad deep breath and looked up at her stopping crying. "What do you want from me witch Medusa?"

Medusa raised a finger to her mouth and tapped it thinking. A wicked grin caressed her face. "I want you to listen very, very carefully, can you do that?" Marie nodded slowly and wiped the last bit of tears off her face.

"Stein is not well. He and his insanity are constantly at odds; I use his insanity against him. As he told me yesterday, his insanity _loves_ me." Medusa gloated, "Yesterday, I drove his insanity wild; he threw me down on the table. It was amazing, he's such a good kisser, and he likes to bite too, I'm still bruised on my neck." Medusa began rubbing her skin where there was a dark bluish mark and saw how much the words were hurting Marie. "Stein really likes to grab the thighs too. I thought I was going to have him again."

Marie closed her eyes tightly. 'Stein wouldn't… he hates her… She's lying.'

"We were about to and his hand shifted and landed on the table with his blanket there. You've probably seen it, the different shades of grey sown together." Marie opened her eyes and her mouth dropped a bit. 'She's not lying…'

"It made his insanity receded instantly. He just got off the table put the blanket back in his room and began smoking. I tried to touch him, and he threw me against a wall. Men, huh?" Medusa complained and stood up stretching her back. She looked down at Marie and sighed. "You're still oblivious aren't you?"

"I can't believe he would…" Marie said softly and the witch laughed. "He loves you…"

"His _insanity_ loves me. 'I'm not quite sure what it is between you and my insanity, but I am not my insanity.' That's what he told me after he hit me into the wall. Do you get what I said now?" Medusa knelt down next to her. "He was so close to having me, and he could of with out anyone knowing, but something about that blanket made him stop, what would that be?"

"I…" Marie smiled as big as she could and looked up at the witch. "I left the blanket there; I used it yesterday morning because I was cold."

Medusa smiled and began walking away. "You still owe me a favor, crushing weapon Marie. I'll come and collect it someday." Marie watched Medusa disappear and she quickly got up and brushed herself off.

Marie walked calmly and cheerfully across town humming to herself. For a bit Marie skipped but stopped well clear of the graveyard. She walked up calmly strolling through the dirt and passed the tombstones to the front steps. She stopped and heard voices coming from inside, neither were Stein's. Marie wrapped her fist together and burst in to stop suddenly. "Nygus!"

"Marie!" The weapons stopped and hugged each other quickly. Stein and Sid just watched silently as the two weapons began going on and on about everything they could think of, though half of what was said was inaudible.

"So," Sid said crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. "Anything interesting happen while we were gone?"

"Not really, I got shot, thrown in jail, Kami was attacked, Maka was temporarily kidnapped, Vivian Leandros showed up and got beaten up, and Norman Hartwell was flogged by Death Scythe and Kami then tossed in jail. Witch Medusa actually came out the hero of the day if you'd believe it." Stein said unimpressed by everything.

"I've got to make my trips shorter." Sid laughed and Nygus and Marie burst out laughing loudly. "Women…"

"Oh yea, I'm dating Marie…" Stein said and smiled over at the hammer. Nygus caught his words and stopped the conversation walking over and pointed a finger in his face. "Yes?"

"If you break Marie's heart, I'll cut yours to shreds." Nygus warned in a highly threatening voice.

"Sounds more then fair." Stein said, but he wasn't going to mention that his heart actually had been cut up one time from an experiment. The weapons swiftly went back to talking at each other.

Sid shook his head, "you know she's not bluffing, right? She will attempt to kill you."

"That's fine."


	35. Chapter 35

Maka and Soul walked observantly behind Death Scythe and Kami. Maka was nearly stupefied at the sight. They were latched arm in arm and they were both giggling their heads off at everything in the world. Maka stopped abruptly in the streets. "Hey, I'm going to go home with them for a while, I'll be back home later alright?"

"Yeah, I'll get working on cleaning everything up." Soul said and drifted off quickly letting Maka catch up with her parents. She had, of course, seen them like this before. It was years and years ago though. Maka stared blankly ahead and was hit by something she wasn't paying attention to that caused her to fall down.

Kami and Death Scythe turned around. Kami laughed, "Maka-chan, you have to pay more attention, sweetie." Kami said softly and grabbed her daughters hand and pulled her up off the pavement.

"Are you getting tired, Maka? Papa can carry you." Death Scythe offered with a warm smile. Maka nodded and Kami helped Maka onto her father's back and they began walking again.

"You're not getting sick are you Maka? You usually don't tucker out this easily." Kami said a bit concerned.

"I'm fine." Maka lied and let her mind wander for a minute as the trio made there way over to Death Scythe's house. Maka sighed, "So what's up with you guys?"

Kami smiled and looked at her, "What are you talking about Maka-chan? There's nothing 'up' with us."

"You're just being silly." Death Scythe agreed and knelt down letting Maka climb off. Death Scythe stood up and stretched his back. "Let's get some dinner. I'm up for tacos."

"Sound good to me." Kami said quickly.

Maka stomped her foot and pointed a finger at them. "That, you're agreeing with each other, what's going on? You never agree with each other."

Death Scythe walked over, knelt down a little and put a caring hand on Maka's shoulder. "Mama and I have decided to try and work things out. So Mama's going to move back in here and we're going to be a family again."

"Huh… Really?" Maka asked smiling goofily. She turned to her mother who nodded excitedly. "I wanna cook the taco meat!" The child ran into the house happily past her parents.

"That's so cute. Look how happy she is." Kami said fondly. Death Scythe stood up and put an arm around her kissing her forehead. "Yes, you're cute too, Papa."

"That's right, I am. And you're even more, Mama" Death Scythe laughed. They walked in together to find Maka was in the kitchen and had found her cooking apron along with both of theirs. "Our chefs uniforms, I forgot I still had these."

"Mine always made me look bloated…" Kami said complaining slightly but took it from her and put it on and smiled.

The three, after exhausting all their efforts into making the tacos had simply arranged themselves on the kitchen floor and ate their food picking on each other when possible. When they finished Maka stood up and took her plate over to the kitchen sink and began washing it.

"Come back and sit down, Maka-chan, Mama will get those later." Kami said and patted a spot on the floor between her and Death Scythe.

Maka shook her head and finished cleaning her plate and set it in the tray. "It's getting dark, I have to get home."

Death Scythe and Kami stopped and looked at each other then turned back to her. "Aren't you going to stay with Mama and I?"

"Anyway, isn't your apartment trashed?" Kami asked quickly and stood up. "You should move back home."

"But I like living with Soul, he's my weapon and my boyfriend." Maka said and smiled up at her. "I'll come visit often of course."

Kami was about to say something else but Death Scythe interrupted. "We'll be over tomorrow to help you guys clean up, alright?" Kami stopped and looked at him. He smiled and shrugged, "if you tell her no, you'll piss her off."

"He's got a point." Maka agreed and laughed. "Can I take some food for Soul?"

Her father nodded and held out his hand to be helped off the floor. Maka dragged him to his feet and together they began assembling food in a Tupperware box. Kami sat still just watching them as Maka bagged the box and hugged her father goodbye.

"Bye Mama!" Maka yelled and threw herself down hugging her mother. Kami smiled and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Bye baby."

"I'll see you tomorrow." Maka stood up and walked out of the house and onto the streets just as the sun was setting. She ran to her apartment and went upstairs to find the door open with Soul carrying out bags of trash into the hallway.

He stopped and turned to see her and set the bags down. "Hey, what's that?" He said looking down at the bag.

"I brought you dinner. We had tacos." She said and stepped foreword to kiss him quickly. She pulled back and they smiled at each other. "How's the apartment?"

"Well… after bleaching my room it's clean, you locked your door so that's all good I suspect, the rest of the place is in utter turmoil." He said and put an arm around her waist to lead her inside. There was a five foot area where the trash had been cleared away. "It's a lot of work to do."

"My parent's said they come by tomorrow and help us clean." Maka said and offered him the bag of food. Soul took it and Maka walked away from him and pulled out a small key and unlocked her room to see it still in perfect condition. She sighed happily and walked in to sit on her bed for a second. "It pays to get a lock."

"Only if it works." Soul said and walked in throwing himself down on the bed. He took the box out of the bag and quickly began stuffing his face with the Mexican food. He stopped abruptly and pulled out two pieces of mail. "From Blair and Wes."


	36. Chapter 36

Maka looked down at the two letters. The first in a flat white envelope was addressed to Soul from his brother. The second was a bright yellow envelop filled with things, covered in postage stamps and addressed to Maka from Blair. Soul smiled at her, "we have pen pals now."

"I don't think that works with your brother being related and all." Maka said and handed back his letter and began to tear into hers. "I wonder what Blair could have written that would have taken up so much space."

She finally got the back flap up and the letter, several photos and some small trinkets fell out over the bed. Maka sighed and smiled lightly. Soul laughed and gathered up some of the stuff into a little heap.

"Oh, that's why." Maka grabbed the letter up. "'Maka-chan, how are you? London is beautiful! I love it here though everyone seems to think my tail is fake. The children love me though; I want to get a new job working with small children. Our house is so big, and so pretty, that I wish I could let you see it! I took pictures and put them in there! OH! I got you some souvenirs. Share with my little scythe boy! I love and miss you two! Blair-chan!'"

"Maka, we need to frame this one." Soul said holding up an embarrassing photo of Wes Evans sleeping in an awkward position. "Maybe even have it blown up."

"Funny." She said and grabbed some of the stuff going through. "Lots of key chains, a few pencils. What's this?" Maka asked and picked up a miniature of a phone booth.

Soul took it from her, examined it quickly and flipped a small switch on the bottom. Suddenly a bright light came out the top. "Flashlight?" They shrugged simultaneously.

"Open Wes's letter." Maka said excitedly. Soul nodded quickly and skillfully just changed a finger and slid it along the top. "That's cheating…"

"No it's not, I'm a scythe." He said pulling out the single type letter. "'Baby brother. I hope you get a chance to come to London soon, our first day was so fun but keeping people from pulling on Blair's tail is a bit hard. She's also not accustomed to a maid, or the maid's pet goldfish. We managed to replace it before she found out luckily.

"'I found something to do in the off season, there's a program for under privileged musicians here, I'm going to volunteer my time teaching violin and how to read music. Maybe if you come we can play your piece for them. Write back, or call, I still have my cell phone number the same though I think Blair might have taken it. I have to go, the decorator's here. I love you, tell Maka and everyone else I said hello. Wes, PS, can you ask Shinigami-sama to please get Justin Law to stop paying uninvited visits to me? He plays his music too loudly.'"

"I guess were going to have to find a way to London now." Maka said softly and picked up another photo and smiled at it. "Look, Wes caught Blair eating the goldfish."

"My brother did always have good timing." Soul said and grabbed it and then exchanged it with another photo. "That's a big house."

"Wow, it's so pretty!" Maka said looking at the three story Victorian. She glanced down and saw something unusual. She grabbed the picture and instantly was caught up in it. "This we need to hang up."

"That… That's sweet, in the romantic way." Soul took the photo and flipped it over. "'Maid-san took it! Isn't it cute?! We have a big one in our living room! Blair-chan!'"

"Let's go stick it on the fridge." Maka said and stood up moving the photo to one hand and grabbing Soul's hand with the other. She walked foreword slowly, Soul moved after her walking a step behind her avoiding the mess everywhere. They enter the kitchen and Maka dropped his hand and stuck the photo on the fridge under a small skull shaped magnet.

"That's so cute…" Maka muttered quietly and fondly. She touched the corner of it making it straight on the fridge. Without thinking Maka blurted out "I'd love to have one cute defining moment like that."

Soul quickly grabbed her hand quickly, spun her and put another hand at her waist. He smiled at her and leaned their foreheads together. "We can do cute too. I think we can do it better actually."

"That's because we're kids so we get an automatic cuteness factor." She smiled softly. Their eyes met in the silence of the room. "It's unfair comparing us to them, they don't stand a chance."

Soul's hand left her and traveled up her arm to the back of her neck. He pulled her close with a gentle motion. Their lips floated barely a breath away from each other. "We are so much cuter."

They met quickly and their head slid, Maka's landing on his shoulder and his stretching over hers. Their hands went out and grasped each other. Soul began humming his earlier composition and they began slow dancing in their kitchen.

The picture on their fridge had lost its lust to them. There in a small rectangle was Wes and Blair in some random dimly lit room. Wes had one hand around Blair's neck and the other was hold her hand. There foreheads were together, they were both smiling happily. Their eyes were now permanently met like Maka and Soul's had. The only real difference was Blair's tail was busy knocking over some vase.


	37. Chapter 37

Stein and Marie were seated in the kitchen at the table; Nygus had elected to stand by the counter. Sid was busy reenacting the desperate battle he had with their latest foe. "And then he got me right here!"

Sid said and held out his hand like Nygus was in it. "I took Nygus and a forced her up through his chin into his brain! And that's how we won, exciting huh?"

Stein and Marie looked at each other. They had both been in far worse and far more exciting situations but both quickly lied as fast as they could. Nygus sighed, "Come on Sid, let's go report to Shinigami-sama already. I'd like to get some rest."

"Right, well, I'll see you guys later." Sid said and waved a hand as he followed Nygus out of Stein's house. As the door shut an uneasy silence filled in over the room leaving them staring at the door.

Marie twittered her hands and looked down at them and over to him. "Do you always get a play by play from Sid?"

"He sometimes comes up with new moves or strategies I haven't thought of. He came up with this really good one where you step on the other's foot and… it's hard to explain but it's useful if your weapons unable." Stein said and watched as her hands moved across each other. A normal guy would have grabbed her closest hand and smiled saying something romantic. Stein didn't do anything but watch then say, "don't rub your hands raw, it's quite painful."

Marie quickly stopped. "Never thought of that… Skin peeling off and blood everywhere." There a normal guy would have said something medical. Stein however moved closer, kissed her lightly on the cheek and laid his head on her shoulder. Marie smiled leaned her head on his trying to avoid the bolt.

"You know," Marie said leaning her head up and looking down at him. "We were interrupted the other night…" She waited a second and his head raised and revealed a simple curved smile with a devious tint. She returned the look.

Stein's hand went and gently caressed the side of her face and pulled their heads together in a silent fluid moment. Their lips broke apart at various moments and they finally pulled apartment to look at each other with intent in their eyes.

* * *

Death Scythe was standing on the dining room table trying to replace a light bulb that had blown. Thing was he was maybe two inches off of being able to easily change the broken one for the new bulb. Kami stood below and laughed at his attempts. "Just put a chair up there, Spirit."

"No, I got this." He said defiantly and finally unscrewed the broken bulb with his fingers. He grasped it more firmly and smiled as he handed the light off to her and received the new one. He put both hands up and carefully set the bottom into the socket and began screwing it in slowly. He finished, smiled and then turned to make a smug face at her. "Told you I could do it by myself!"

"Well, I guess I was wrong." She said as he jumped down from the table. Kami held up a small black leather wallet. "Marie left it here, Papa, would you run it over to her?"

"Huh, oh, sure Mama." Death Scythe said and took the wallet shoving it into the pocket of his jacket. His hand grabbed her arm, "I'll be back in a bit then, Mama."

They kissed and he walked away, out of his house and into the evening sun. Death Scythe was very proud he was able to replace the light bulb, he didn't think he'd actually be able to do it either, but he wanted to show off for Kami so he attempted anyway.

Death Scythe happily observed the sights as he walked to the creepy part of town and saw the graveyard. He strolled up past the headstones, walked up the steps and walked straight into the house. "Hey Stein! Marie! You guys here?!"

There was a small grunting noise and Stein appeared in the hallway in good spirits. "Hey Sempai what's new?"

"Marie left her wallet at my house." Death Scythe said pulling it out and handing it to Stein. Stein took it and set it on the counter. Marie charged out of her bedroom grabbed Stein and began dragging him away. "Um… alright, bye Stein."

Death Scythe did want to think on to it much seeing as he seemed to constantly interrupt them and casually walked out the door letting it slam loudly behind him.

Stein waved with his free arm and was tossed back into his room. "You may look tiny, you're very strong. Do you know that?"

"I get it all the time." Marie said happily and grabbed him and pulled his arms around her. "We're going to have to start locking the door."ey Stein! Marie! You guys here?!", walked up the steps and walked straight into the house. graveyard.

* * *

**Aki!: **So, I thought I was finished with new things for SE since classes and Black Bird is so huge, but I do have something small to start posting in a couple weeks, you'll like the comedy of it, it's going to be called 'Shibusen Does Commercials' so be expecting it. Anyway... um.. TADA! *bows*


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